'Wouldn't trade it': Amanda Hasler proudly brings her Northeast roots, toughness to OSU
Playing softball growing up in Connecticut wasn't easy for the new Cowgirl catcher.
Amanda Hasler grew up in Connecticut and played travel ball in Rhode Island, neither of which are softball hotbeds. But the circumstances bred toughness in the new Oklahoma State catcher. (OSU Athletics)
Amanda Hasler remembers clearly the day her travel ball team had practice on a nearby football field.
It was wintertime in New England, and outside practices for any sport, much less softball weren't always possible. But on an all-turf field, Hasler and her teammates had a chance to break out of their indoor routine.
Then came a surprise.
"It started to snow," Hasler said. "There was a little layer of snow, but we continued to practice. It was just a lot of fun.
"I wouldn't trade it for anything."
Being a softball player who lived in Connecticut and played travel ball in Rhode Island helped make Hasler who she is today. Tenacious. Gritty. Tough.
She is also a Cowgirl.
Earlier this month, Hasler, a big-hitting catcher, transferred from NC State to Oklahoma State. While she is not as high a profile transfer as Ruby Meylan or RyLee Crandall, pitchers who will lead the Cowgirls’ pitching staff moving forward, Hasler is extremely important for OSU. She is likely to be the Cowgirls' starting catcher, and that means she'll have a big influence on the entire team.
She'll be a tone-setter for sure.
Good news for the Cowgirls, toughness is her tone.
"Being a player from New England ... it's tough because you have these long winters and you have to practice inside all the time," she told me in a telephone interview.
"I think it creates a toughness that not a lot of other players around the country get."
Toughness has been a buzzword — and a focus — in Kenny Gajewski's recruiting over the past year or so. The Cowgirl coach realized at some point that top-notch talent was crucial, but so was hard-nosed grit.
“We just had to get this tougher feel,” he said late last season.
It’s why the Cowgirls went so hard after Karli Godwin and Jilyen Pollard, for instance. Sure, they were splendid players, but they were tenacious ones, too.
Seems like Hasler has an edge, too.
Even though she is from Connecticut, she comes from a bat-and-ball family; her uncle, Jerry, played pro baseball in the independent Northeast League for seven season.
Hasler started playing softball when she was 6 or 7, and early on, she was a standout.
“I remember the coaches telling their players to back up in the outfield because I was up to bat,” she said. “I didn’t realize I was good at the sport until that started happening.”
In her hometown of Avon — only 20 minutes west of downtown Hartford — there weren’t many softball options. So three years after she started playing softball, she moved into travel ball. The first team she played for was 30 minutes away, but a few years later, she joined an even higher level team that was two hours away.
It wasn’t even in Connecticut but rather in Rhode Island.
Being part of the Rhode Island Thunder was a sacrifice for her and her family — they did it throughout her high school years — but Hasler knew it was for the best.
“I learned so much from those travel-ball practices,” she said. “It was worth it to make those drives every weekend.”
But whether she was playing during her early years close to home or later across state lines, Hasler was still growing up in a part of the country that isn’t all that conducive to playing softball. In Avon, for example, the average annual snowfall is nearly 35 inches, and in six months of the year, it has significant snowfall.
That means lots of indoor softball practices.
“We learned how to watch the ball into our glove because the lighting was so weird,” Hasler said.
She laughed.
“We have this Northeast mindset where we play with this chip on our shoulder because other teams tend to overlook us,” she said. “So it builds confidence and toughness in us because, from the start, we have to deal with adversity and learn how to overcome it.
“Getting to go through adversity like that, I think it creates toughness.”
Go back and read again what Hasler said there at the end.
Getting to go through adversity.
She sees her background not as something she had to overcome but rather something she had the privilege of experiencing. It didn’t hold her back. It got her to where she is today.
And now, she wants to keep going.
(OSU Athletics)
In two seasons at NC State, she didn’t get a chance to play in the NCAA Tournament. Being at OSU on her official visit during the Cowgirls’ super regional series against Arizona is the closest Hasler has ever come to the postseason.
She intends to be a part of the May-hem next season.
“It's always been my dream to go to the world series,” she said.
If that happens, she’ll proudly wear OSU orange; she told me that she nearly cried when she saw pictures of her in Cowgirl gear taken during her official visit. But Hasler will also be representing her roots in the Northeast. The cold. The snow. The tenacity.
“If the snow wasn’t too bad, we’d go outside and we’d practice,” she said.
“We'd have, like, five undershirts on just to keep warm.”
In Amanda Hasler, the cold stoked a fire.
Jenni, you were always a really good writer — The Oklahoman seems to breed them. But with all the cords cut, you are free to write your way — and so far it has been way over board good. And Amanda — we are going love her!