ELK GROVE (MPG) - At the National Fastpitch Coaches Association convention in December of last year, NFCA hall of fame coach and current Sheldon Huskies softball coach Mary Jo Truesdale connected with Joey Lye, who won a bronze medal with team Canada in softball at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Truesdale and her staff spoke to Lye about what she does and the message she sends to young student-athletes, and the idea sparked there to bring her to town to speak to young softball players in the area.

As a result, on March 16 Lye came from Florida, where she currently resides, to speak with the Huskies,  the Sacramento Breeze and Lady Magic softball at the Breeze Bats Facility in Sacramento. 

“We (Truesdale, her staff and Lye)  aligned in so many of our values and how important it is for us to impact the youth of today, and we decided there and then that they were going to bring me out and it came together so easily as her staff is so amazing,” said Lye. 

Now that Lye has retired from competitive play, she travels to talk about mindset to young athletes, as she also is featured in a TeEDx Talk video titled “Joey Lye: Master Your Unstoppable Mindset” on Youtube as well as the TED website. 

According to Lye’s website, she played 12 years with the Canadian National Softball team and coached 12 years in the NCAA. and she now specializes in high performance consulting, speaking engagements and workshops. 

The main slogan Lye goes by is “adapt and thrive,” which she said is powerful and helped her throughout her career. 

“In the moment and over time has impacted my approach, my response and how I navigate challenges that come at me through life, and I hope it’s a slogan that people can remember and use in their own lives,” Lye said. 

Truesdale agrees with this, as she said that this slogan is important for the young women who attended the event to learn to become stronger adult women because it’s all about facing adversity and to get past anything that confronts them. 

One of the reasons that Lye travels to speak to young female student-athletes is to tap into that potential that they may not know they have, Lye said. 

“For them to have a real female stand in front of them and talk about challenges they’re currently facing and strategies to navigate them and hopefully set them up for more success in life and realize they have more potential than they even know, it fills my soul to impact these athletes and know that someday they could end up achieving something because they heard from a woman who faced challenges in her life and ended up overcoming them."e had a female athlete figure to look up to in Vicky Sunohara, a Canadian ice hockey coach, former player and three-time Olympic medalist. Lye said she tries to shares that inspiration with young athletes, as she felt so empowered to be in her presence and to learn from someone so successful.

Lye talked to these young student-athletes about mental health in sports, reasoning that the earlier that they learn how to manage through tough times the more successful they are going to be.

“There are strategies to help ourselves manage through tough times and it’s OK to voice when we’re having a hard time, and it’s important to have a support system that can help us through challenges, and the earlier we have those habits and support systems the more successful we are going to be and the less anxiety will be taking over our life. And as adults they will have strategies in place that already work for them vs. growing up into adulthood needing to then figure out how to operate at an optimal level,” Lye said.    

The decision of which college to attend for Lye was driven by which school would let her be a multi-sport athlete, in softball and hockey, while giving her a quality education, so she tells young student-athletes about how important education is, especially with time management later in life. 

“I think sports are an amazing avenue to education, and the experience of being a collegiate athlete sets individuals up for so much more success in life because you’re learning to balance the rigor of a college education with the rigors of a college sport,” Lye said.

These opportunities are obtainable for these student-athletes,  and although everyone’s path may look different there is a fit out there for them if they choose to play sports in college, Lye said. 

One of the student-athletes who attended this event was Sheldon Husky middle infielder Madison Chapman, who said she took in a lot of information that Lye had to share. 

“I had an open mind coming in and I was ready to hear from a professional athlete and try to be like a sponge and soak up anything I could get, and I’m really thankful our coaches could organize this as now I’m very motivated as I feel her talk pertained a lot to me so I was able to take in a lot of information for myself,” Chapman said. 

The biggest takeaway for Chapman was building her confidence on and off the field to be able to play at the collegiate level. 

Another Sheldon Husky who attended was pitcher Kwinci Brown, whose biggest takeaway was creating a process for herself when going to the plate. 

“Most of the time when I go up to bat I don’t really have a process; I just kind of go up there and do it so I feel like if I were to tune in with my mental side it could help my performance a lot but I feel like I could be calmer,” Brown said. 

Brown will begin to create this process by setting up reminders in her phone with a motivational message, like Lye said in her speech, as well as applying other pieces she had mentioned about creating a process, which Brown found to be inspiring and motivational. 

The biggest takeaway Lye wants for a young student-athlete is to expect challenges instead of fearing them. 

To follow Lye’s work, visit her website at joey-lye.com and her Instagram and Twitter @joey1ye.