Ariel Puent doesn't see herself as a role model. In her mind, she's just another high school softball player who got to start in left field as a freshman. 

Many would disagree with her assessment. Puent was born with a right arm that ends at the elbow. So in order to earn that starting spot, she first had to learn how to field while quickly switching her glove from arm to arm. 

That's a learning curve that would be too steep for some, understandably. Not for Puent. 

"She doesn't see herself [as a role model]," her father Chuck Behrman told KSDK.  "We do. And a lot of people look to her for inspiration and how can you not?"


Puent, 15, is just happy to fit in with her girls softball team at St. Charles West High School in Missouri. It wasn't always the case.

"I got bullied a lot and it was really bad," Puent said. "They would put their arm in their shirt and walk around and laugh."

Her teammates don't do anything of the sort, although Puent said she does hear the whispers and feel the stares of the opposition.

"They're like, 'She has one arm,'" Puent said, whispering. "And they'll like talk about it. And I'm like, 'I know what you're talking about.'"

The outfielder, who hit .250 last season as a freshman, can now joke about being a congenital amputee.



"I fell and the teacher is like, 'Do you need a hand?'" Puent said. "I was like, 'Actually, I do.'"

Puent's good attitude has extended to sports. She also plays soccer and basketball. And now she's beginning to slap bunt in softball. Puent has no designs on letting her right arm -- which she and her teammates lovingly refer to as "Jimmy" -- deter her in any way.

"She's one of the hardest workers that I've seen in six years here," St. Charles coach John Warnecke said. "She's unbelievable. She's willing to do anything to get better."

It's no wonder why people look toward Puent as a role model.

"No matter what you have going on, if it's tough, you have to overcome it and just do whatever you want to do," Puent said. "It just feels really good inside to know I'm accepted. They think of me just as one of them."

By Marc Raimondi