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 "You should see my dining room table, it's loaded to the gills. All stuff of her. Everytime a new magazine comes out, it isn't very long somebody's bringing me that one, too," said Ada Barents, grandmother to Olympic standout Jennie Finch. (Sentinel photo by Marsha L. Melnichak) [Click to enlarge] |
He should have asked her Grandma, Ada Barents of Ireton. She knows the answer: personality. Jennie's got lots of it and it's all good, according to Grandma.
"I know everybody says she's so pretty. I don't even see that. I think her personality outweighs everything," said Barents, last week, eagerly awaiting another chance to go to her friend's home a few blocks away and watch Jennie pitch at the Olympics.
Finch pitched two of the winning games for the U.S. Women's Softball Team's third consecutive gold medal.
'They got the gold'
"They could hear me all over town," beamed her grandmother Monday after the medal was clinched. "I think there was only one time when there was a score against them. Nobody got any runs off of her. Not when she pitched."
"It felt so awesome to be out there, wearing USA across my chest,'' Finch told the Miami Herald. "I have been waiting for this moment since I was a little girl. In 1996, I stood in line to get Dot Richardson's autograph when the Olympic team came through town. This is an incredible honor for me."
Ada Barents, grandmother to Olympic standout Jennie Finch (pictured on shirt and poster) said she could be heard all over Ireton when the United States softball team won the gold Aug. 23.
(Sentinel photo by Marsha L. Melnichak) [Click to enlarge] |
In a USA Today interview, Finch explained she let the lucrative offer go by because, "I'm a role model for lots of young girls."
On her website, she elaborated, "No amount of money could influence me. My morals and standards come first. I am here to be a role model for young girls and show them what really counts ... and that is what is on the inside."
Most years, Barents visits her daughter Beverly's family in California during Iowa's winters. "I go to all the games I can when I'm down there. You should see after a game. Those young girls are lined up along that fence a block long for them to get her autograph."
Hero
It's not just Grandma's pride. USA Today noticed that phenomenon, too. "What she's become, most of all, is a hero to adoring fans who are mostly 10- to 13-year-old girls. Thousands have joined her fan club. After ballgames, some wait in line for hours for her autograph.
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For an Olympic preview photo shoot Finch wore jeans and a yellow shirt. Her response to the sex symbol publicity is that it helps the sport grow and people attend the games.
On the other hand, USA Today reports she is frustrated as well as flattered by the attention. "When you train six to seven hours a day to be the best in your sport, you don't want that to be overlooked," she says. "I don't train for my looks. It's not my goal for Jennie Finch to be a household name. My goal is to win the gold medal.""
Like Grandma Barents said: personality.
Said Barents, "I'm so very, very proud of her. She's just a wonderful girl and she's got her head on straight. She's a little sweetheart."
Jennie Finch began her standout softball career just like every other little girl who plays softball.
(Photo contributed) [Click to enlarge] |
Barents recalls the moments that led to a new invention. "When she was still in grade school, she came home one day and she said, 'Dad, I'm going to quit ball.'
'Oh, no, you're not,' he says.
'My one arm, that's getting bigger than the other one and I'm not going to be going through life with one arm bigger than the other.'"
Windmill
Soon after, her father and coach, Doug Finch, invented the Finch Windmill which is designed to promote equal muscle balance while it increases speed and endurance.
Doug's mother-in-law points to a picture of the machine and explains, "This is on a pivot and you go w-a-a-a-y around all the way around. What he believes is you have to exercise your opposite arm to your throwing arm. When you throw that ball, that's your force. You throw with your throw arm; but, that other side of your body gives it that thrust. There's a lot of them, after they've used it not very long, they can tell that they can throw almost five miles an hour faster."
Jennie stayed in softball and began practicing with the machine. Sometime later, Grandma Barents made a dress for Jennie to wear as an attendent at her brother's wedding. "And, I fit that pattern to her arm and I thought, 'Well, that looks good.' When I went to sewing it up, that one was too small. I had to take that part of that dress apart and let the seams out just as far as I could. And, boy, after that, she practiced a lot heavier."
The daily routine of pitching, weights, fielding, hitting and hours of conditioning on the machine reminded Barents of a time in Jennie's high school career.
"Somebody hit her on her arm. They took her to the hospital, they even took an x-ray but they didn't find it. And at the end of the school year, her mother took her to the hospital where she works and she insisted that they take an MRI and it was broke.
"She pitched with a broken arm for a half a school year.
Don't you think that doesn't take, what do you call it, push on her part? Boy," she said. "Determination."
It's another of those personality traits which Barents admires in her granddaughter.
Grandpa's Girl
The hard-throwing pitcher says the love of winning, hatred of losing and her competitiveness inspire her to play.
While Grandma couldn't be any prouder of Jennie, "She was grandpa's girl. She just thought the sun rose and set about him and so did he about her, I'll tell you. She was always grandpa's girl."
Grandma Played Ball, Too
 U.S. Olympic softball standout pitcher holder of the NCAA record for consecutive wins, Jennie Finch, has area ties. Ada Barents, 84, of Ireton, who used to play a little work-up ball at country school is Finch's grandmother. (Sentinel photo by Marsha L. Melnichak) [Click to enlarge] |
And, Grandma used to play a little ball, too, at Eagle Township #6, a country school a little north and west of Ireton.
"When I was a kid, I liked ball all right. But then I never majored in it or made a big fuss over it," she said. "Now, Beverly, when she was in high school, she was pretty good, too."
Jennie's Dad, who also attended West Sioux, said he knew great things were in store for the young athlete after a trip to Iowa when she was eight. She saw her first snowfall. "Her reaction was to pack a snowball -- then toss it out of sight," USA Today reports.
Finch makes time in her busy schedule to do charity work. She has partnered with Cal Ripken, Jr. to conduct softball camps and clinics for disadvantaged youth and raises money to fight diabetes and world hunger. She even donated a Finch glove and other memorabilia for a fund-raiser for an area woman. For one fund-raiser she pitched to famous ballplayers, none of whom connected with her rise ball except for a foul tip. Later, personality showing through again, Finch explained that it wasn't their fault, her pitching was different than the style they knew.
The Olympian also made her Grandma proud when, in a magazine profile, she said she believed, "I can do all the things in Christ who gives me strength."
Grandma Barents, who taught Sunday School for 22 years and volunteers her sewing skills to refurbish wheelchairs, has a similar philosophy, "I try to put God first place in my life. Makes things work out much better."
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*Tossed a no-hitter with five strikeouts over three innings in her Olympic debut, a 7-0 win over Italy.
* 2-time National Collegiate Player of the Year
* Holds NCAA records for consecutive wins (60) and most wins in a single season without a loss (32)
* Gold medal, 2003 Pan Am Games
*3-time All-American
* Most Outstanding Player 2001 Women's College World Series
* One of People Magazine's 50 most beautiful people of 2004
* Co-host on Fox's "This Week in Baseball"
* Tosses a softball 71 miles per hour
* Endorsements: Sprint, Innovative Sports, 24 hour Fitness, Bank of America, Bolle, Mizuno, Sealyand, of course, the Finch Windmill invented by her father
* In the news: Sports Illustrated, People, Glamour, USA Today, Vanity Fair, New York Times,
*Went 15-0 with a 0.27 earned run average on USA Softball's pre-Olympics tour
*Struck out (among others) All-Star catcher Mike Piazza and outfielder Mike Cameron. Barry Bonds told her he wouldn't swing at her pitch until the Olympic team brought home the gold.
* Ada Barents' granddaughter