We’re excited to introduce our newest blogger in Paulina Anasis, a 2015 corner infielder from Southern California who has signed with Northwestern.

Smart, funny and articulate, several coaches raved about Paulina and what she brings to a team and she’s played with some great ones over her career: Explosion, the Corona Angels and, as of this past fall, the National Champion OC Batbusters—Haning/Stith program.

Paulina was in the top 50 of the 2015 Hot 100 we updated in October and the 6-foot power hitter showed why last year as she was a 1^st Team All-Orange County selection who batted .425 and led her high school to the semi-finals of the very competitive CIF-Southern Section Div. I playoffs.

In today’s blog, the athlete explains how her parents supported her in as many as four sports at a time: “ They allowed me to believe I could do anything I wanted no matter how challenging it would be,” Paulina writes. “They never pushed me too hard but instead they encouraged me to push myself.”

So, without further delay, meet one of the best club and high school players in the country in her introductory blog!

***

My name is Paulina Anasis, I am currently 18 years of age and a senior at Canyon High School in Anaheim Hills, California.

I am beyond grateful to be attending and playing a sport I love at Northwestern University in the fall (go Cats!) but until then I play for the Orange County Batbusters.

All of the people, events, places and things that came to be in my life–whether it be for a minute or for my whole life–paved the way for me to become the person I am today.

Not necessarily the person I described in the previous paragraph, the one playing collegiate softball and whatever, but the one I am inside my head. They created my identity and my personality which will hopefully speak for itself throughout this little blogging adventure we’re about to take part in together!

Thankfully, as a young one I had a father and mother who put me in as many activities as possible—partially because they needed a way to drain all my hyper energy so that I wouldn’t be bouncing off the walls, but also because they understood how valuable it can be for a child to participate in sports.

Mondays would be ballet, Tuesdays tap dancing, Wednesdays would be tee-ball, while on Thursdays you could find me flipping and falling “gracefully” on a balance beam at gymnastics and on Fridays I’d be out at soccer practice.

Eventually, I grew out of gymnastics and you probably know what I mean: “I grew out of it,” literally, because if you’ve ever seen me in person I stand at roughly 5-foot-10.

Ballet exited stage left with gymnastics, but what remained with me was some great agility from all the kicking and twirling. Agility doesn’t go hand-in-hand with tall height so you can imagine what wonders that has done for my athletic career.

Thanks ballet!

Anywho, the girlier endeavors needed replacements in order to keep my busy schedule busy, so tee-ball baseball was replaced by rec ball softball as soon as I was old enough.

I said bye-bye to playing ball with boys and hello to playing ball with girls! Starting baseball earlier proved to have given me the upper hand when I started to play girls at Orange Villa Park rec league. I already knew the ropes but the other girls were just learning how to hold a bat and put on a glove. My dad had already taught me all these things when he was my tee-ball coach in the years before I even knew softball existed.

A new chapter in my life approached me…CLUB SPORTS!

As both soccer and softball became a fixture in my life, I learned a great deal about commitment, team, time management and competitive intensity. Club soccer was at one point the largest athletic focus in my life. Regional cups, state cups, and soccer tournaments every weekend became my lifestyle.

But it wasn’t just that.

I clearly remember several years of racing from a soccer tournament, changing uniforms in the backseat and making it just in time for a softball game or two. Splitting time between two sports was pretty tough and exhausting for a little one, even hyper little me! I didn’t even know the half of it yet.

Through elementary school I was introduced to basketball and eventually pursued club basketball once I played a few school games and a club coach saw me as the tallest 10-year old on the court and asked me to consider playing with her club team.

My parents knew I had a full plate in my lap already but I hadn’t ever played basketball before that year and it excited me in a whole new way. I decided to give it a try.

After a year of three club sports followed by a year of four club sports (I ran competitive track briefly), I realized that my full plate was now more like a leaning tower of pizza!

I quit track and basketball and decided to get down to the nitty-gritty and really center my focus onto the things I truly loved.

It took me a long time before I could call it quits and depart from one of my first loves, soccer. It was truly a heartbreaking yet inevitable decision that still makes me sad to this day. I always told myself I would be a soccer player AND a softball player in college.

But the important part is that my parents allowed me to think those youthful thoughts! They allowed me to believe I could do anything I wanted no matter how challenging it would be. They never pushed me too hard but instead they encouraged me to push myself.

Although there are countless things in between these events and, now, to me they feel like the largest things that spell out how I came to be who I am today not only an athlete, but also a student, a friend, a daughter, a teammate and countless other things.

I’ll show you more and more about my journey to now (and my journey from now to the future) in later blog entries where I’ll tell you about my musical interests and academic pursuits, but for now I would like to extend many thanks to all who have devoted the time to read what I have to say.

It’s scary and overwhelming and humbling all at once to stop and think that anyone out there has any reason to be even remotely interested in my story.

Shoot, I didn’t even realize my life WAS a story until I sat down to write this, but I’m going with the flow and I’m thankful to those who will flow along with me!

Have a wonderful a day!

— Paulina