5/19/23
By Kevin Taylor
Alma Schools
For every adult who believes screaming at eight-year-olds is bad for youth athletics, there is at least one Jocelyn Harless story out there that believes otherwise.
The Alma senior is not among those who were beaten down mentally as an eight-year-old softball player. In fact, it only made her want to play harder.
“I’ve had a lot of coaches in my life that I truly loved, but one of my first travel softball coaches I had was coach Kyle (Thomas),” Harless said. “He was a very hard coach, yelling at my little eight-year-old face. But that’s how I needed coaching; I needed to be yelled at to be able to make progress. Coaches like that really help me learn.”
There were others, too.
“I have a club volleyball coach (Tanisha Guy) who would make us run after practice for every mistake we made,” Harless said. “We’d be there 30 minutes after each practice, but I feel like that’s what coaching needs. You’re not going to learn if you’re not getting critiqued.”
A multi-sport athlete, Harless excelled in three different sports — volleyball, softball, and dance. She couldn’t have done any of it without the support of her parents, Lisa and Lance Harless.
“They’re fully supportive,” Harless said. “They’ve spent so much money on equipment, gas, hotel rooms - they’ve been so supportive mentally and physically. They’re my strongest support system. I don’t think I could have made it through sports without their support system.”
Competing in three sports, including those that overlap, can be difficult. Dance coach Sara Murray has impacted Harless’ future, she said.
“Coach Murray has played a big role in my high school career, too, because she’s almost like a mother figure,” Harless said. “She’s very responsible and she gives great advice. Also, for the students, she doesn’t care if it’s me going to softball or me going to dance - she wants me to be successful at whatever I do.”
Sports have been a staple in Harless’s life.
“Athletics taught me a lot,” she said. “It taught me how to be responsible and how to manage my time. It taught me how to be organized and plan (the week). It taught me to have good communication skills, especially being a multi-sport athlete. I think I’ve learned a lot of valuable life skills to help me with the career that I want.”
That career,” Harless says, a big smile on her face, is to become an Elementary School teacher.
“I teach the kids’ class at my church and I absolutely love it,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to be a teacher. I feel like the lord was telling me that’s the path I needed t take.”
Try as she might, Harless said her senior year went quicker than expected. Life has a way of picking up steam.
“Time goes by really fast anyway when you think about it, but this last year has gone by in the blink of an eye,” Harless said. “I remember thinking last summer that this year was going to go by really fast, so I need to make sure I’m living through the moment.
“I did not think it would actually go by this fast.”
Harless and the Lady Airedales struggled during a top-heavy 5A-West schedule. But despite the hardships, she believes she and her teammates persevered because of good practice habits.
“I think it’s pretty hard - especially to go through it with injuries we had with our softball team this year,” Harless said. “That by itself was hard. We’re getting beat down a lot and it’s hard to do it mentally because you’re putting in all this work at practice and it’s not showing up in the game. (But) you can’t compare yourself to other people, and you can’t compare scores, either.
“You have to compare yourself with where you were yesterday, with where you are today. You have to do an individual comparison to keep your head up and keep your mind strong.”