Turning Two

It was a typical offseason practice day in January for the University of Georgia softball team. The players were gathered in the locker room getting ready to go out to Jack Turner Stadium to stretch, hit, field and do their normal, daily exercises.

But associate head coach Tony Baldwin had a different plan.

“Put your turfs on!” he told the players.

Some had already put on their cleats and others were right behind them. Though it seemed like an abrupt change, it had been on Baldwin’s mind for a while.

“As a coach, you are looking for things to lighten it up and have some fun,” he said. “This helps us remember that it’s just a game that we are all very invested in.”

Baldwin’s latest idea: Double Dutch.

“It’s really fun!” junior pitcher Amanda Ablan said. “It’s great team bonding and the coaches actually encourage us to do it.”

Unique activities like this that benefit the team’s chemistry might help Georgia (40-17) make a second consecutive trip to the Women’s College World Series.

The Bulldogs opened play Friday night against Drake in the NCAA regional in Minneapolis, results can be found at OnlineAthens.com.

Minnesota, seeded seventh nationally, and North Dakota State also are in the regional.

Another visit to Oklahoma City for the Bulldogs could come this summer, but the idea for Double Dutch was hatched last summer over a dinner between Baldwin and University of Washington assistant coach J.T. D’Amico.

“We were talking about defensive stuff and how jump rope is a good drill, how it incorporates timing and rhythm and footwork,” Baldwin said.

The two made a deal that if their teams were to meet in the postseason, they would have a Double Dutch competition. Baldwin wanted to ensure that his team would be ready.

He brought in a friend — whose name Baldwin, perhaps in a covert move, wouldn’t divulge — that had a little experience in the past with the activity.

“It was random,” junior catcher Mahlena O’Neal said. “We had no clue what we were doing and there was a lady out there with a whole bunch of jump ropes. We thought we were just going to be doing regular jump rope and then they explained that it would be Double Dutch.”

In Double Dutch, two turners swing two jump ropes simultaneously in a crisscross pattern for the person jumping. To make it more challenging, more than one person can jump at a time.

It was surprising how many girls we had that were really good at it,” Baldwin said. “The one that was the most surprising and outstanding was Mo [O’Neal]. She could really Double Dutch.”

That was not the case for all of them. Senior shortstop Alyssa DiCarlo said she and junior infielder Justice Milz “are absolutely terrible.”

“I’m scared that the jump rope is going to hit me,” DiCarlo said. “I always jump in with my back first and my head crumpled up close to my body. We just couldn’t find the rhythm of it.”

Prior to the season, the jump ropes came out two to three times a week.

“We’ll pull it out every once in a while,” O’Neal said. “We do it on the concrete outside the locker room between the softball and soccer stadiums.”

The jump ropes have also traveled with the team as the Bulldogs went to Boca Raton for the Florida Atlantic First Pitch Classic from Feb. 8-10.

“A game got delayed because the game before us went a few extra innings, and we were just over there having fun and staying warm,” junior infielder Jordan Doggett said.

The activity helps their on-the-field play. Baldwin said he believes it helps his infielders with their rhythm and timing.

“Trying to time yourself in with the ball is the name of the game,” Baldwin said. “The ball won’t time you, you have to time the ball. And that’s just how jump rope is.”

The players agree.

“Timing is everything with ground balls and you have to choose which hop you play, when you want to get it and how you want to get it,” Doggett said. “Just like Double Dutch, you have to choose which turn you want to go in on or not go in on.”

The activity has also sparked childhood nostalgia. Several players reminisced about the Disney Channel original hit movie “Jump In!” that aired in January 2007, before any of the players had hit their teens. At a talent show in the fifth grade, O’Neal and some friends Double Dutched to “Jump In!” music in the school cafeteria.

“Double Dutch is a stress reliever for us,” O’Neal said. “Also from a coaching standpoint, it’s a drill to get our feet moving and to create synergy with each other.”

It might also help them beat the University of Washington Huskies, seeded third nationally, on the field and off of it, too.

The Grady Sports Bureau is part of the sports media program at the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.