Senior Meghan Healy has been selected as the Athlete of the Issue. Healy is a two-sport athlete and is a member of Justice High School’s varsity girls basket­ball and soft­ball teams, although soft­ball is her main sport. Healy has always been a hard work­ing and dedi­cated athlete. Healy is the captain of varsity soft­ball, and a partic­i­pant in varsity girls basketball.

Healy started play­ing recre­ational soft­ball at 6 years old and switched to travel ball in the 8^th grade. We asked Healy what made her decide to stick with soft­ball and she said “My mom signed me up for it when I was young and I just kind of stuck with it. It wasn’t some­thing I was natu­rally good at and I really liked having to work extra hard and be chal­lenged by the sport.”

Some­thing else that made Healy stick with soft­ball was her inspi­ra­tion, Odicci Alexan­der, she describes how she inspired her as “I was self taught at the time she led JMU to a regional game and it was amaz­ing to see how far some­one could go with­out years of expen­sive training.”

Even though soft­ball was some­thing Healy decided to just “stick with” she still loved the sport, she described how she felt about soft­ball as “Every­thing about it makes me love it, the speed of the game, the inten­sity level, work­ing together as a team.”

Chloe Kowal­czyk, A team­mate of Healy’s, described her as “Some­one who will never fail to make you laugh.” and “Some­one who is highly compet­i­tive in a sports setting and truly the most driven person I’ve ever met.” Chloe says that, “Even though she has played with girls so insanely skilled she holds every­one to an equal stan­dard. Healy is also sweet and kind as a person.” Others on the soft­ball team describe her as a leader and some­one who is fun to be around. 

Another team­mate of Healy’s, Brid­get Barron, expressed that “Meghan was a really consis­tent leader. She takes the time to check on every­one, and she is always 100% commit­ted to what­ever she is doing. As a senior she was a great exam­ple in a lot of big games this year and brought people together.”.

Healy had received a few D3 offers, as stated by a team­mate, but ulti­mately decided to not take them up to focus on her stud­ies at James Madi­son Univer­sity in the fall, where she will be major­ing in Biol­ogy. Healy has stated she might try out for a club team at JMU and hopes she will make it, and she will hope­fully meet others who enjoy soft­ball in her new found community.