Professional softball player in Australia interview: Alicia Peters
ALICIA PETERS plays softball at the professional level in Australia. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay. She has 2 associates degrees, a bachelor’s degree, and a master’s degree. She is currently working on a second master’s degree which she will be graduating this spring. In her free time, she has a dog that she loves to take with her paddle boarding. She loves coaching youth softball teams and coaching lessons. In this podcast with Alicia, we will be talking about performance anxiety, overcoming a back injury, transferring schools, and handling coaches not believing in you.
Below I have written most of what we talked about but you can listen to the full podcast on Anchor / Spotify or on Apple Podcasts.
Q: Your degrees are in psychology, social behavior, health and wellness management, and you’re working on rehab counseling. How did you choose these degree paths? How did transferring schools impact your schooling?
A: When I got to my junior college on the first day registering for classes they asked me what my interests were and I told them I kind of like counseling.
They asked if I wanted to go the medical route and I said no. I can’t do needles or see blood or anything.
They told me my options were psychology and human services so I said that sounds good, I’ll do psych.
Half way through they told me that if I take one more class I can do social behavior so I did that.
When I got to Buffalo I already had the psychology degree so I just continued with that.
At Green Bay with the Health and Wellness Management, I kind of just picked what I thought would be easier to take because I wanted to focus on softball more after my bachelor’s.
Turns out I absolutely loved it! I think further on in my career I will be a health and wellness manager.
For the rehab counseling degree, I had to decide what kind of path I wanted to choose. I chose to go with substance abuse because that always intrigued me.
Q: Do you feel like you would have done different degrees if you weren’t a student-athlete?
A: I don’t know if I would have gone to college right away if I wasn’t an athlete. Softball was and is my whole life. That was the only thing I was focused on.
In the recruiting process, coaches were asking what I wanted to do and I always said I want to play softball and get to the professional level.
They would always say “okay that’s awesome but you need to choose a degree”.
If I wasn’t a student athlete, I don’t think it would have been different because it’s still something I’m passionate about.
Q: What was your experience with your back issues?
A: When I got to Buffalo, I started having the worst back pain.
I would always go in the training room and tell them what is happening and it feels like I can’t breathe sometimes.
Some spasms would happen because I kept having a rib out of place.
The trainer would put the rib back in place, give me some ibuprofen and call it good.
It was getting so severe that they started giving me muscle relaxers to help it.
My first year at Buffalo, I took one because I was having really bad pains and I was instantly like this isn’t going to work.
They would only give me 7 and told me to make it last the whole year.
I would rather get to the root cause. This isn’t normal. I don’t want pills. I want to see a doctor and be fixed.
My third year at Buffalo, I was in excruciating pain all the time basically.
We didn’t have any catchers and they needed someone to step up and catch bullpens.
As the team captain I stepped up to do that and it made my back so much worse.
About a week later, I was in lift and it was still not getting better. I cleaned, something popped and I instantly went down so I got sent home.
I went back the next day to the trainers and they gave me more muscle relaxers. “7 pills, make it last”.
This was pain I’ve never felt before, my legs started going numb.
I was sitting on my bed and it was getting to the point where I couldn’t breathe, I was taking really short, shallow breaths.
I tried to get up and I go to my bathroom and I’m the only one home at the time, my roommates were out of town.
I collapsed on the floor and I remember thinking “oh my God this is it! I think I’m going to die”. I am barely breathing and I cant move.
I started screaming “God, please help me. I don’t know what else to do. Please don’t let me die like this. I don’t want to go yet”.
The next morning I woke up from my dog licking my face. I stood up and I had no pain and the rest of the season I was fine.
Ever since then I’ve had a few times that my back will tighten up but I think it was an overuse thing.
Q: What kind of performance anxiety did you experience? Why did you feel that way?
A: Out of high school I went to a junior college. Growing up I don’t think I ever had problems with performance anxiety.
I simply played the game I love with my heart on my sleeve.
I might have been a bit nervous if a college coach was watching me but that’s it.
At junior college, your job is to get out as fast as you can to the best possible school.
The other thing is you’re competing with however many other girls on your team to get that.
Everyone’s going to be a utility; everyone can play anywhere; everyone wants playing time and the coach to be helping them.
I got really nervous because I had big goals to go division one, go power five, and hopefully get a good scholarship offer so I don’t have to take out loans.
But that’s everyone’s goals.
I didn’t handle it very well. Part of it was that I’m young, I’m from a small town and I didn’t play for the most competitive team.
So I’m out here and all of these girls have the same goals as me.
My performance was absolute trash. I look back and I wish I could shake little Alicia and be like “what are you doing? Snap out of it, you’re fine”.
You feel like the pressure of your whole future is on the line.
Q: You’ve experienced a lot of rejection and coaches not believing in you. What was that like? What advice would you give to another athlete who is going through this as well?
A: Growing up in Chico, you say you want to go Division 1 and go pro. The reactions you get is “yeah, okay, you’re probably going to play at Butte Community College and finish out there or maybe transfer to Chico State”.
Always hearing that growing up is discouraging. People don’t take you seriously.
You have to learn to be like whatever, I know what I can do and I’m not going to stop until I get there.
When I got to my junior college, I was like oh shoot I’m a very small fish in a big pond.
I knew I wasn’t the best in that moment but I knew to work hard to get there.
When I got to my four year it was the same feeling again.
I had coaches that thought it was the best way to motivate their players by telling them they are trash.
I’ve had a coach tell me I’m going to be a .200 hitter the rest of my life. “That’s just who you are, you cant fix it”.
I’ve had a coach say that we are trash and he wishes he could replace us with the Puerto Rican Little League boys team.
When you hear those kinds of things so much you start believing that. I know I can be better, though.
When I got to Green Bay that’s when I started performing how I always knew I can.
Q: What was one of your favorite moments while competing?
A: It would have to be when we were playing at LSU when I was at Buffalo.
Being from California and going to school in New York, my dad never really came out to see games before this moment.
This was my third year because my first year he couldn’t come and my second year was Covid.
The whole plane ride to LSU I’m thinking about how excited I am that my dad is coming to see me play.
I’m also thinking of course he picks when we play an SEC school that made supers last year.
But I want to show out for him.
Before that, we played ULL and they’re an amazing team. I did well against them.
After that we played Oklahoma State and they’re coming off being at the World Series the previous year.
I look in the stands and see my dad waving with his camera.
I do really well against OSU which is great. Now we’re playing on national TV, ESPN, against LSU.
I’m walking up to the plate thinking I just need to make contact and show my dad I can play with these girls.
It was like an out of body experience: I hit a homerun. It was the coolest thing ever seeing it go out and looking around thinking I’m at the Tiger’s stadium and that just happened.
As I’m rounding the bases I look up and see my dad in the stands.
He’s wiping a tear from his face and standing and clapping.
I get back into the dugout, I turn around and I see the usher hand him my homerun ball.
That was my favorite moment because growing up watching the World Series you always see the ushers getting the homerun balls and handing them to the parents.
I told my dad, “that’s going to be me one day. I’m going to get you a homerun ball”.
I’m not going to the World Series and I want to give my dad this experience.
I was so happy I could give my dad that moment and I could follow through with my promise.
Q: What are you expecting the transition out of playing competitive softball to be like? How are you preparing for life after college sports?
A: I think this has been the weirdest summer. It’s my first summer without playing softball.
I was like, what do I do with my life? Is this what normal people not in athletics do? Hmm, what to do? I guess I’ll go to work.
I am at tournaments coaching a 12U team this summer. It’s very hard for me and it’s different.
The process to go overseas to play is a lot like college recruitment. I’m thinking “oh my God am I going to play again?”.
It was really nerve wracking but I learned a lot about myself. It was a nice reminder that playing softball is something I have to do like brushing my teeth.
I have to actually think about training by myself since I don’t have anyone to practice or train with.
I’m going to do anything I can to get there.
I know going overseas isn’t going to be as competitive as I’ve experienced in college.
My goal is to be able to play in the states again so I need to find a way to make myself better.
I haven’t really thought about retiring yet and hanging up the cleats.
I think that everyone loves games and the highs of the games.
As soon as I stop loving the hard parts like lifting, going to practice when you’re tired, etc. that is when I’ll stop.
At this point in my life I don’t see that happening any time soon.
It’s different when you’re not in college anymore because now you have a job.
You need to start thinking if you want to start a family and get married soon and I’m starting to see that side of it.
Right now I think my idea of what I’m going to do is when I get back from Australia is I’m going to find an actual career job.
I talked to my program director and I told her that I’m going to be overseas so I think I’m going to need a remote job.
I think I want to go into health and wellness management for now.
When I was in that program that’s what stuck with me the most.
When I’m done playing softball I’ll probably go into rehab counseling but for now I’ll start a career that allows me to do both.
Q: Do you have anything else to add?
A: More people need to know that you’re not alone.
When I was feeling low I felt like I was looking around and I’d see teammates and coaches being perfectly fine with no issues.
I’m like I’m drowning in issues. Knowing that you’re not alone is the most important thing.
If you missed the last podcast, our guest was Oregon State Track runner and nurse student Maddie Fuhrman. In that episode, we discussed transferring schools, handling setbacks, and how to deal with feeling like you left your sport not feeling done yet. Up next we will have softball player Mackenzie Moore Baumann as our guest. In that episode, we will be talking about homesickness, recovering from a pretty big and unique injury, coaches not believing in her, and the transition out of college athletics.
If you have any more questions for Alicia, please leave comments below or contact me. If you or someone you know is struggling, please call or text the Suicide Hotline. It’s toll free and available 24/7 at 988 or 800-273-8255.
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