Serena Settlemier will go down in history as one of the most splendid players ever to put on a Kansas University softball uniform.
Today, however, Settlemier is just another KU graduate trying to make her way in the real world. This summer, she is playing for the Texas Thunder in the National Pro Fastpitch League. This fall when the season ends, she’ll : well, she doesn’t know.
“I’d like to work for a pro baseball team in public relations and marketing,” Settlemier told me by phone the other day. “But it’s hard to find time for interviews when you’re playing four days a week.”
Ever since Settlemier joined the Thunder just a couple of days after she collected her KU degree in communications, I’ve been checking the Internet from time to time to see how she has been doing.
Settlemier started fast, slugging four home runs in the first few weeks, but lately her hitting has tailed off, no doubt in part because of the competition.
“The pitching in this league is phenomenal,” she told me. “They’re smart. They don’t miss over the plate. They know how to pitch to you.”
During Settlemier’s storybook 2006 season, few opposing pitchers had success against her. Settlemier led the Big 12 Conference in home runs (22) – including an astonishing six grand slams – runs batted in (61) and slugging percentage (.771).
Throw in a 17-7 record and a 1.44 earned-run average while working in the circle, and Settlemier’s selection as the Big 12 Player of the Year was a no-brainer.
As a pro, Settlemier is also pitching, but if you saw her hurl for the Jayhawks last spring you wouldn’t recognize her. Gone is the funky, herky-jerk windmill windup she used to confuse Big 12 hitters.
Now, at the urging of teammate Christa Williams, a member of the 1996 U.S. gold-medal team, her approach is more conventional.
“It’s been a little bit of a struggle making the change,” Settlemier said, “but I have more speed now and a better drop ball. And I have a new grip for my rise ball.”
If you followed Settlemier’s KU career, you know she had two surgeries on her pitching arm and that she battled numerous other ailments during her five years on Mount Oread. Still, it wasn’t until she turned pro that she suffered a sprained ankle.
“It happened in practice. I was running, and it just popped,” she explained. “What’s crazy is, of all the injuries I’ve ever had, I’d never had a sprained ankle. They couldn’t believe it because every girl on the team has done it three or four times.”
While with the Jayhawks, Settlemier played through back, arm, leg and neck woes, but the ankle injury was so bad she had to sit for about a week and a half.
Settlemier, incidentally, isn’t the only member of the Jayhawks’ Big 12 tournament championship team to land a pro gig. Shortstop Destiny Frankenstein is with the New England Riptide.
The two former Jayhawks haven’t faced each other yet, but a four-game series is coming up in August at the Riptide’s park in Lowell, Mass.
“I haven’t talked to her this summer,” Settlemier said, “but it’ll be great to see her next month.”
