RamWire: Donaldson's Calm Influences Team
Senior grateful for transfer to Colorado State
Mike Brohard
FORT COLLINS, Colo. – Jen Fisher was pretty sure she messed up a prime chance.
She knew about Haley Donaldson, and what she’d seen since first meeting her as a seventh grader playing on an 18-younger Triple Crown team was she was beyond her years. Not just as an athlete, but a composed young lady.
Donaldson grew up in Fort Collins and attended Fossil Ridge High School, but even though she was raised a Colorado State fan and her father had played football for the Rams, she was intent on playing softball at Nebraska.
Fisher wished her well. Then when Donaldson was looking to transfer, Fisher wished she had her. But when the Colorado State softball coach brought the player in for her first unofficial visit, Fisher wondered if she’d blown it by doing it all wrong.
“The mistake I made is when she got permission to contact, I brought her here, just her and I,” Fisher said. “Some recruits, that’s a really good way to do it. They get to know you as a coach, and you get to know what’s behind why you want to transfer.
“She’s such a people person. I almost screwed it up, because it was just her and I, and I didn’t want her to feel pressure. I didn’t have her meet all the other people. So I said, ‘before you decide, will you come back one more time,’ and I had her meet every single person. I almost screwed it up. For her, it wasn’t necessarily the relationship she has with the head coach, but the relationship she has with everybody.”
The story sends Donaldson into a short giggle fit. Part of it is true, but not entirely.
She didn’t enjoy Nebraska. Softball was no longer fun for her, and she felt the game was being played for all the wrong reasons. She hit a point where she counted down the day to breaks, to when the season was over.
Donaldson had never viewed softball in such a manner, and it pained her.
“She made me want to come here,” Donaldson said of Fisher. “It was just me processing it was a new chapter, this is a new school, this is a new campus.”
She’s a big deal. I realized that right away, just with her work ethic on and off the field. Being in classes with her, being on the field, I could see that. It didn’t take long to realize she was going to be a big part of this team, and she filled in some pretty big shoes.CSU Softball Player Corina Gamboa
But, Fisher was right, because Donaldson wanted to meet her new teammates and interact with them. She wanted introductions to the other coaches and support staff. She needed to get a feel of what the Rams were about and how they did things.
Would it be a fit, and would it make softball fun again?
“I knew I wanted to play. It had to be somewhere else, but it had to be a good experience, a positive experience,” Donaldson said. “It had to be more than just winning, or else I wasn’t in for it. I wanted more than wins and losses.”
The Rams will tell you Donaldson’s transfer led to such a change.
“She’s a big deal. I realized that right away, just with her work ethic on and off the field,” said Corina Gamboa, who mans the left side of the infield with Donaldson. “Being in classes with her, being on the field, I could see that. It didn’t take long to realize she was going to be a big part of this team, and she filled in some pretty big shoes.”
Donaldson has a sense of humor she brings to the locker room, and while the team was already somewhat close, her positive energy was a definite plus. The Rams hadn’t won a conference title since 2004, and nobody was giving them much of a look. In her first campaign, Donaldson helped solidify the infield and become a table setter, and as the season progressed, the program started to see the possibilities.
The record wasn’t much different from the year prior, but the losses were. There were so many narrow defeats. Donaldson wouldn’t let them hang their heads, she had them looking upward and onward.
By this time, Fisher had seen her develop a friendship with everybody on the team, each one different. Donaldson didn’t transfer in to become a leader, it just happened. And while she knows it is a role she carries, it’s not one Donaldson gives any thought.
“Anchor. That’s more of what I think of myself, because I was a transfer, and I came from a situation where it was the most negative environment,” Donaldson said. “Being a student-athlete is hard as it is, with the pressure, the performance, academics. I feel like it’s easier to focus on the positive things, because it’s contagious. If I focus on positive things, my close teammates will focus on positive things and everybody else will make it positive, and that’s’ what makes it that much more fun.”
Yet, there is a character trait Fisher puts the utmost value in, and she’s not exactly sure how it came to be for Donaldson.
Negative things will happen in a game. A bad at-bat. An error in the field. How players react is key, and those who can move past while understanding the effect are gems. Donaldson carries the innate ability to not let things linger, and Fisher is sold it had a calming effect on the entire roster.
“I think it’s a rare combination of competitiveness with the ability to not get down on herself,” Fisher said. “The mental toughness she has to play this game is something that is really rare, especially in young women. I told her, ‘Donny, how do you do that? How do you overcome a mistake?’ She said, ‘I don’t know coach, I guess I just try to have a short memory.’”
Actually, Donaldson is sure it’s because her parents molded in her the belief obstacles can be overcome.
Such as being born tone deaf. By the age of 4, the condition worsened and she was declared profoundly deaf. When she was 5, she had a cochlear implant placed in her right ear.
“I think it was just kind of my parents. It was never an excuse,” she said. “It was yes, you do have this disability, but don’t be so hard on yourself because you aren’t doing things above and beyond everybody else. It’s not an excuse, you’re equally as capable as everybody else.
“It’s just my story. I grew up hard of hearing, deaf. Life is just kinda going to go on. How are you going to react to it? It’s not necessary to cause a big scene or be dramatic. At this level, when anybody makes an error it’s frustrating, embarrassing. It’s about how you react to it that separates you from everybody else.”
Some people don’t catch on right away. Fisher had informed the team, and when Texas Leaguers were falling between her and outfielders, they realized communication had to change. Fisher worked with the outfielders first, telling them to let Donaldson call them off instead of the traditional way of outfielders calling everything. They worked on it, then told Donaldson of the plan.
The alteration is just once instance where Donaldson expresses her gratitude toward Fisher and her teammates being accommodating, to finding solutions instead of just declaring an issue. She has noticed with key messages to deliver, her teammates stand on her right side. They also know she can read lips from across the room, so if they’re trying to keep a secret, they had best turn their backs.
She has paid them back by hitting .303 in her career with 68 runs, 38 extra-base hits and fielding an impressive .942 at a demanding position. She also carries a sterling 4.0 GPA as a two-time Mountain West Scholar-Athlete.
“It’s her work ethic on and off the field. She works hard, and especially with her disability, she’s able to adjust quickly and go around that,” Gamboa said. “She’s just a leader to all of us. We’re the same grade, and I still look up to her. We have classes together, we practice together a lot, and I look up to her and she helps me with every aspect of college. Honestly, I don’t think I could do college without her because of her help.”
What unfolded last season was what they all had been missing. The Rams won 39 games and secured the Mountain West championship, advancing to NCAA Regional play, where they went 1-2. Donaldson’s first plate appearance against Auburn – she went yard.
The culture had changed, and she played a vital role. Now the roster is going to change, and again, her positivity will be key.
The outside world sees the loss of Amber Nelson, the conference player of the year, and ace pitcher Bridgette Hutton. Gamboa knows Donaldson won’t let the team look back.
“With her, it’s more looking at what we have, working with that and building off that. It’s not, we used to have this,” Gamboa said. “Her mindset is more about the present and how we’re going to deal with that in the future. Her mind is looking forward rather than behind, and that’s a gift. You lose people and you gain, and you have work around that.”
Softball is fun again, and Donaldson doesn’t want that to change. Heck, she doesn’t want it to end.
This season, she said, can hold the same magical feeling. A culture which breeds team has led to wins, not insisted upon them. When she walks into the locker room, she wants to be there, with her teammates, each and every one of them. She knows who she can count on in the clutch, and she’s confident the new faces will blend in perfectly.
“It’s unbelievable. I’m so grateful and blessed,” Donaldson said. “The experience I’m having now is the experience you’re supposed to be having. You don’t want to graduate because you’re having too much fun. It’s bittersweet, whereas my freshman year I was counting down the days to go home, to be done with the sport. Now I’m embracing every moment.”
As is Fisher, who is forever thankful to not have blown the initial one.