You know, one of the great things about SportAccord is the number of Olympic legends you see walking the floor and shooting the breeze. This time around they included Sebastian Coe, the UK middle distance gold medalist who now runs the London 2012 organising committee and Frankie Fredericks, the great Namibian sprinter. These are busy guys with important jobs but at SportAccord they can relax because they are among friends – they’re part of the family.

 

I know that’s how Jessica Mendoza and Michele Smith, two-time Olympic softball medalists felt when they spent time at our booth. As softball Olympians they were certainly at home, among people they share so much with.

 

That’s down to the fact that the Olympic Games remain the pinnacle of any softball player’s career. They may plan their lives from game to game but appearing at an Olympic Games remains their overriding ambition, winning Gold their enduring dream.

 

That was true not just of Sebastian Coe and Frankie Fredericks and the vast majority of Olympians but it’s certainly true of every aspiring softball player. For them, the Olympic Games remain the greatest stage of all.

 

From Denver the focus of the BackSoftball team’s attention shifted many thousands of miles to the west and the Oceania National Olympic Committees’ General Assembly in New Zealand. This time out I was back at our world headquarters while our sport was ably represented by Ms. Low Beng Choo, our Deputy Secretary General (Malaysia) and Danielle Stewart (Australia), who was a bronze medal winner at the Beijing Games.

 

The fact that BackSoftball’s team in New Zealand was an all-female affair reflects our structure and commitment to inclusion at every level. In fact, most of our team in Denver were also women. We have always stressed that softball is among the most inclusive of games, open to both genders and people of all ages and ability levels. But that commitment goes way beyond simply playing the sport. The fact that 33 per cent - and soon to be more - of our Executive Council is female shows that this is a truly open sport that welcomes the contributions of every members of its community, irrespective of gender.

 

The presence of Danielle Stewart in New Zealand also underscored the global nature of softball. You know that the ISF now has 127 members - and that doesn’t just mean nations where softball is played from time to time but here there are established and recognised competitions and development structures.

 

And 2009 is a big international year for our sport with our players taking part in events all around the world. The ISF XII Men’s World Championship will be contested by 16 nations in Canada from July 17-26 while the Youth Softball World Cup for girls ages 16-and-under will be hosted by the Czech Republic from August 9-16.

 

In addition, softball is an important part of numerous major multi-sport events, including the World Games and World Masters Games among others which also take place this year.

 

So with SportAccord behind us and a busy schedule ahead, the BackSoftball campaign will be stepping up the pace as we work to persuade the International Olympic Committee to include our most Olympian of sports in the Games programme for 2016.

 

Even in such a busy year we never lose sight of what makes softball so special and it seems to me that every one of the reasons I am so committed to the sport is a strong reason for its inclusion in the Olympic Games. Ours is a truly global, inclusive, and drug free sport that champions participation and supports its athletes, coaches, and administrators throughout the world.

 

I keep looking for more boxes to tick and while we’ll never stop working, I think we pretty much have the full set. But you know what? What really matters is the softball athletes, and anyone who had been around those who visited at us during SportAccord will have seen their excitement at being part of an event which unites the Olympic Movement and the world of sport. This is their world and where they belong, alongside all the great Olympians down the years. When it comes down to it, We Are Family!

 

Don Porter is the president of the International Softball Federation

Comments

It was disgraceful that the Olympics voted softball out in the
first place. It would be an even bigger scandal if they now
ignored the claims of reintroducing it after Don has worked hard.
I hope that if they do vote it back into the programme that they
have the good sense to tell London to include it in the 2012
Olympics.
By Softball fan, Tuscon, AZ

6 April 2009 at 16:34pm