Andrea Davis had never experienced anything like it before. The crowd of 8,000 people was loud, aggressive and passionate. They bombarded individuals with taunts and jeers so overwhelming that Davis breathed a sigh of relief.
At least they were on her side.
"I don't think I would have been able to take it," she said of the Oklahoma University softball fans. "I don't even think my team realized how much (the crowd) influenced the game. Every batter, they were on their feet yelling. They yelled at the pitcher. It was so loud."
The game she's talking about was the NCAA softball championship. The Taylorsville High graduate found herself in the thick of a national championship her first year at Oklahoma.
"It was so amazing," she said from her parents' West Jordan home. Davis came home for the summer to work. "I've never experienced anything like it."
It was a game O.U. won 3-1 against UCLA. The home-grown talent said as exciting as it was, it wasn't even the best game of the tournament. That, she said, was Oklahoma's game against Arizona one round earlier.
One home run (by Oklahoma's third batter) decided the game. Davis' team won 1-0 against one of the country's best softball programs.
"We played them earlier in the season, and they killed us 6-0," she said. "Whenever you play Arizona, you get so uptight . . . It's such a prestigious school."
Davis played outfield for Oklahoma but made her way there behind the plate. She graduated from Taylorsville in 1997 after leading her team (as Deseret News MVP) to their first state 5A softball title. She was offered several scholarships to four-year colleges but said a call from a coach at Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho, "just felt right."
"It was a little closer to home (than the other offers), but not too close," he said. "There's no other way I would have wanted it. It was the funnest time of my life."
As a starter for Ricks, she helped her team take second in the nation her freshman year and third her sophomore year. Her batting average while there was .557.
One day during the winter of her sophomore year, a secretary came to her and said she had a phone call from Patty Gasso, the softball coach at Oklahoma University.
"I talked to her, and she said she wanted me to come there and work out," she said. "I hadn't sent her a tape or anything."
So at the end of January she went to Oklahoma and worked out for Gasso. The coach then told her she wanted to watch her play for Ricks.
"She came to our first conference game in April," Davis said. "It snowed so much, the field was covered and our game was postponed a while. She drove the four hours from Salt Lake. She'd lived in California her whole life, and Oklahoma is hot and humid."
The two connected right away, and Davis canceled trips to Florida and Oregon State.
"It was between BYU and Oklahoma," she said. "I was waiting to see if my (Ricks) coach got the BYU job. I got tired of waiting and just signed with Oklahoma. He didn't get the job anyway."
She said it was harder adjusting to Division I softball than she expected. The pre-season conditioning and weight training was the toughest part.
"The fall was torture," she said. "Running and lifting. I'm afraid to do it again in a couple of months. During the fall, I struggled a little bit. It was a confidence thing."
They used her some at catcher, first base and as a designated hitter with a batting average of .335. But she didn't find her spot in the line-up until they put her in right field.
"I was really scared at first," she said. "I hadn't played outfield since I was 12 years old. I just kept saying, 'Don't hit the ball to me.' But then it got a lot easier. I really enjoyed it."
"As long as I'm in the line-up, I don't care where I play."
She might get some time behind the plate this year because her team has a new pitcher, one she caught for at Ricks.
"I've caught my whole life," she said. "It's definitely where I'd love to play. But I just want to play."
E-MAIL: adonaldson@desnews.com