After playing Division 1 Softball in college, Alison Rossi graduated with a desire to help other girls learn the sport that taught her so much about life.
“I lived a different kind of life when I got out of school because I didn’t have to pay down any student loans and I wanted to give back to the sport that gave me a tremendous amount.”
That desire led her to volunteer as a coach for a nascent girls’ travel softball team about seven years ago, and motivated her to start her own girls' softball club after the leaders of that team dissolved the club at the outset of the season.
“All of a sudden there were 30 girls who had no team because no one was looking for players at that point. I thought ‘How can I finish the season for these kids?’ The whole point of that first year was to just survive.”
She leased temporary space in East Hartford to train the girls and was able to get the team through that season. At the end, parents began coming to her asking when she would hold tryouts for the following season and Alison realized she had created something permanent.
Now in its sixth season, the Diamond Club has about 120 players, girls between the ages of 9 and 18, who play on nine different teams.
And those teams have established a competitive reputation on a national level. “In the last 6 years we’ve placed in the top five at nationals every year,” Alison says.
But the Diamond Club girls, she said, are learning about more than just softball when they train and compete in tournaments.
Softball, the teamwork and the competitive aspect of the sport, she adds, teaches girls to have confidence in themselves and in their ability to be competitive in a society that traditionally has emphasized cooperativeness from women and have pegged as “tomboys” girls who want to do competitive sports.
“Girls have to know that they have the ability to be competitive and not be looked at as one of the boys. When I was growing up I was ultra-competitive, I was already treated in middle school and high school like one of the boys. I was never looked at very fondly by the girls, who were mostly cheering and supporting the boys. I’m trying to teach these girls that you don’t have to be like that. I let them know, you’re not bossy, you’re competitive. You can go into male-dominated industries and be competitive in that organization.”
Marc and Sarah Boucher say the sport has been good for their daughter Anna on numerous levels.
“While Anna’s skill development has been incredible, her awareness, resiliency, determination, and love of softball have grown exponentially since she became a Diamond (strike Girl). We could not be happier with the program.”
The club's team members come from dozens of towns in the region and that melange of kids from various communities, Alison says, also broadens the girls' perspectives on how to interact and get along with kids outside of their own community and school friend groups, which is different from town and school sports leagues.
"Some teams are made up of girls who all go to different schools. So they create their own special circle, their own tribe around this sport and they're not just stuck in their own town."
There are 9 girls from Glastonbury who currently play for the club. Six of the girls play on the 10u (aged-10-and-under) teams: Sylvia Lewis, Avery Jankowski, Anna Boucher, Lyla Elliott, and Brooke Schlenger. Two play on 11u: Natalia Draghi and Adrianna Cicchiello. Lauren Meehan plays for 12u, and Kathryn Allegra plays for 16u.
Two of those girls, Natalia and Adrianna, have been selected as USSSA All-American players. They will represent the club and their community by competing in the All-American Games in Florida this August.