This is Brentt Eads of Extra Inning Softball…
We are excited to announce the addition of a new member to the Extra Inning team and, if you know your fastpitch softball, you know that our latest correspondent is a National Championship-winning infielder, a college All-American and a professional player with the USSSA Pride and the Athletes Unlimited league. Not too shabby, right
You are viewing: How Many Golden Gloves Has Jessie Warren Gotten
Jessica Warren won an NCAA DI title with the Florida State Seminoles in 2018 and will forever be known for the amazing diving catch she made to help the Noles all but close out the Game 1 victory. If you’re not familiar, take a second to enjoy what is one of the greatest college softball plays… well… ever!
We’re excited to bring Jessie’s great personality and extensive catalog of softball experiences and stories to our ever-growing market. Expect to hear from her regularly on our site and benefit from what she has to say, write and show us!
To kick off our first contribution from Jessica, here’s an intro to her life and background that she provides herself…
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Get to Know Me With 10 Fun Facts On & Off the Field!
by Jessica Warren
I’ve decided I’ll jump right into this and share Who I Am with you, in hopes you get to know a little bit about me and, in doing so, open the door for me to get to know you all as well.
I’ve never been one to write about myself, so opening this door is a challenge as I’ve endured a lot of struggles and difficulties on my journey in this thing called “life.”
So where do I begin?
I guess I can start with my name.
Hi, my name is Jessica Warren, but everyone in the softball world knows me as: Jessie, Jessi, Jessy, Jesse… however you want to spell it, is how you spell it!
I got the name ‘Jessie’ from the boys. They thought ‘Jessica’ was too much of a girly name being around them…. HOW DUMB, right?
Well, it ended up sticking and that’s what I go by now. You’re probably wondering why I mentioned boys and not girls; that’s because I grew up around the game of baseball.
I played baseball my entire childhood, from the age of 3 all the way up until high school, where I completely transitioned to softball full time.
Wellswood Pony Baseball was where it all started. I got the opportunity to play with some great athletes that came out of those fields… to name a few:
- All-American pitcher at the University of Florida, Alex Faedo, who’s now playing with the Detroit Tigers;
- Mississippi State University pitcher, Cole Gordon, who is now playing with the New York Mets;
- University of Florida signee who later decided to sign with the San Francisco Giants in 2013, Christian Arroyo;
- and University of South Florida utility player, Andreas Leal.
No wonder I grew up so competitive! My mom put me around some competitive athletes starting at such a young age. I always dreamed about playing baseball at the next level, never softball.
The University of Texas… now hat was THE college to go to when I was younger. That was the college I wanted to attend, and play baseball there. I remember always playing NCAA ’06 on my PlayStation and using the University of Texas every single time because I wanted so bad to be a character in that game one day. Those plans changed, and God had better plans for me.
It never really crossed my mind playing college softball because I was so baseball driven, but I’m so glad I switched over to softball and God sent me down a different journey than I was expecting. But doesn’t He always?
For those that don’t know me too well, I committed to Florida State University going into my sophomore year of high school; that’s where I played college softball from 2014 to 2018.
Some of you may know me as the “diving catch girl “from the 2018 Women’s College World Series, but some of you may be a little younger and have grown up over the past four years and not known that was me.
Here I am, sitting at my desktop, allowing you to get to know me through a screen:
After college, I got drafted to play professional softball for the USSSA Pride and I’m currently going into my 5th season with the Pride this summer, getting to play in the new professional league, the WPF (Women’s Professional Fastpitch). It’s been one heck of a journey for myself!
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To help you get to know me better, I’ve pulled 10 of the best ‘get to know me’ questions from a poll on social media in hopes you’ll have more of an understanding of who I am, why I am the way I am, and why I do what I do and love every second of it.
1. What’s your middle name?
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My grandma named me and gave me the most popular name, Jessica, followed by an even more popular middle name, Lynn. Very common. How unique and basic… boo, lame, tomatoes, tomatoes, I’m throwing tomatoes. I’m only kidding, I love my name, very beautiful.
Jessica Lynn Warren.
2. What travel ball team did you play for when you were younger?
As mentioned, I played baseball and played for an AAU team called the Tampa Blades and the Tampa Razorbacks. After starting softball, I played under Coach Sherman Johnson Sr. on the Threshers.
We then moved organizations to the Diamond Smashers, and eventually branched off and created a one-team organization called the Tampa Young Guns and that’s the team I played for for the remainder of my travel ball career. I did play for other organizations here to ‘guest play’ when I wasn’t playing on the weekends, but that was only a handful of times.
3. If you got bullied in school when you were younger, how did it feel, and how did you get through it?
I was bullied in elementary school and, as I played baseball, the only people that I hung around were boys, so I gave off a tomboy vibe and the girls would pick on me during school.
There was one time I got pushed into the boy’s bathroom and the girls locked the door and made me stay in there until a teacher realized what they did. Obviously, those girls got in trouble, but it still affected me mentally.
I think the best way I handled those situations was that I tried to limit my interactions with those people. I never attacked them back, because they were trying to look to control me by forcing me to respond to their negativity, and then I told an adult, went to peer mediation with the girls, and everything was settled.
I know sometimes those things may not help but I think as well, find a group of friends who accept you for you.
4. If you had any hardships in life, how did you overcome it and not give up?
I would say I had a tough childhood growing up. There are a lot of things that I personally am not comfortable sharing just yet, as I still am working through these things daily, but I’ll be able to share those with you someday if you’re just patient with me.
It was always just my mom, my brother and I, but softball saved me, saved us.
Softball was my safe haven. That’s why I’m so thankful for this sport I get to play every day. If I didn’t have softball growing up, I honestly don’t know where I would be sitting right now.
I know this for certain: It would not be at this desk answering my loving fans’ questions. I had a core group of friends that supported me, and a LOVING family that was willing to take me into their home and treat me as their own and I’m forever in debt to them and the financial stability that they provided, taking that stress off my mom.
I grew up poor. Our home got foreclosed on and we had no where to go. We just had a car.
Mom was then able to get us into an apartment for a few months, but that didn’t last long and we had no where to go once again. We ended moving into my aunt’s house, a 3-bedroom, 1 bathroom house. The downfall was how many people were there. There were 10 people who lived in the house. It was chaos.
5. How do you manage sports along with everything else in your life?
As a professional athlete, our offseason is super long. Nine months to be exact. We start season in the middle of May and go through the second week of August. Therefore, it’s not too hard to manage that part of my life. Softball is my job, so I get to wake up and play softball.
Outside of my season, in that 9-month span, I give lessons, workout to maintain my muscle mass, and do other things that I love outside of softball. I love to draw; it’s another passion of mine, although I’m not Picasso. I still enjoy the calmness it brings to my everyday doings.
6. Do you have any pets?
I have three beautiful dogs and I love them more than life itself. They are my fur-babies, and I don’t know what I would do without them!
Jax, male, is a Yorkshire terrier:
Bailey, female, is a Miniature Schnauzer:
Xena, female, is a pitbull:
I suffer from GAD (General Anxiety Disorder) and they are so good and patient when I have anxiety episodes and know exactly what to do for me.
Each one calms me in different ways, and it’s so amazing to see how smart dogs are and how they have an ability to sense when something is wrong with their owners and vice versa. They are so sweet!
7. Who was your biggest inspiration growing up?
As I mentioned earlier, my coach was Sherman Johnson Sr. His son, Sherman Johnson Jr. was someone I looked up to tremendously; I don’t know if he knows that.
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He played baseball at Florida State as well, from 2009-2012. Sherman was also a third baseman and ended up getting drafted to play in the MLB for the Los Angeles Angels organization.
I played softball with his younger sister, but he would always be around our practices for travel ball as we practiced out of Alonso High School (where we both attended HS; obviously, he was before me). He would always come and help out, whether that be hitting us fungo or running the bases for us.
Sherman would always challenge us, always running super quick down the line, testing how quickly we could get the ball out of our gloves, or how quickly we could relay a ball in from the outfield.
To be honest, a lot of our success came from him challenging us in ways that we didn’t want to be challenged. I would stay after practice with him occasionally and get some extra work in and I really appreciated him taking his time out of his day to help a 12-year-old get better in the game to eventually be where he was going, and that was Florida State.
I remember specifically this one time he worked with me on my range. I was a shortstop, and he challenged me back and forth up the middle and into the 5/6 hole to see how much I could push my range. I wanted to throw up after because it was basically conditioning, but I look back and realize how much those small drills, even if they were just for 10 minutes, have helped me be the player I am today as a third baseman.
I don’t need much range at third as I’m on the foul line, but those drills now allow me to play third base like a shortstop and play more 5/6.
When I met him, I became intrigued by his work ethic and his game, and how strong-minded he was when people told him he would never be good enough to play at the next level. How he played, how he held himself, and the characteristics his dad, my coach, instilled in him.
I even changed my number because he wore number 32 in college. I wanted to be just like him, so I wore number 32.
As the years went on, I realized what I saw in him, I was starting to see in myself. In 2012, Sherman Johnson Jr’s junior year, he won the Golden Glove in college as a third baseman. As a female in college, they don’t give that award out, but when he won, I always wanted to get that same award he got.
His dad would always tease me about how he had the award and I didn’t, but would still tell me to keep working hard because one day, I would have one if they added it to the sport. I literally wanted to be just like him.
When I got drafted to play in the professional league and learned that there was a Golden Glove for women, I did my best to be the best on the field so I could have that moment and appreciate the hard work it took to get that award.
Bragging to him that I got the same award he did was nice too, and to show him that we (women) are just as bad a** as men!
8. What is your career long-term goal?
To be honest, I don’t know what I want to do long-term yet. I do know that I want to play softball if my body allows me too, depending on when my body will be ready to be done, but I haven’t figured out what to do next from there.
I am currently in vet school and see a future in that field, working with animals, which I love with all my heart. So possibly stay in the medical field for animals and see where that takes me, although I have a long way to go.
9. If you didn’t play softball, what sport would you play?
I would play basketball.
I played just about every sport growing up.
You name it, I have a picture of me doing it: baseball, soccer, softball, tennis, roller hockey, speed skating, volleyball, track & field, even handball.
I just loved being athletic and being a kid. I think had I played just one sport, I wouldn’t be playing it today and would have been burnt out.
The good thing about playing multiple sports was the ability to figure out what I wanted to do and what I wanted to play. Not what my mom wanted or what someone else thought was beneficial for me, but what Jessie Warren wanted to do.
10. Why do you wear #30?
When I was growing up, I wore #3 a lot. It was one of my favorite numbers because it was the first number I wore when I started playing ball.
When I got to high school, coach gave me #12 but the jersey was too small on me so I had to switch. I ended up getting #16 because former MLB two-time All-Star Jose Fernandez, who attended my high school and tragically would later die at age 24 in a boating accident, walked by and told me to get #16 because “real ballers wear #16.”
Jose was a great person and I really loved watching him play. I wore #16 all through high school, as well as #32 as mentioned before in travel ball.
When I got to Florida State, Coach Travis Wilson asked me what number I wanted to be. I only had a few days to decide and #3 was taken, #16 was taken by Jessica Burroughs and #32 by Rylan Harvey so my options were limited.
I had a teammate at the time who was going to be #31 and we were good friends and she suggested I just take #30.
Fortunately, Steph Curry was – and still is – one of my favorite athletes and he also wears #30. It will be my forever number. I mean, for real it will be my forever number… I have it tattooed on me now!
— Jessica Warren, Extra Inning Softball correspondent
Source: https://t-tees.com
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