Semoball Awards keynote speaker Jennie Finch tells audience about value, success that comes with losing

Olympic gold medalist softball player Jennie Finch stood onstage at the Southeast Missouri State River Campus on Saturday night and recalled in front of hundreds in attendance for the second annual Semoball Awards a time when she was trying to come up with stories to tell for her book, "Throw Like a Girl: How to Dream Big & Believe in Yourself."

She said her dad asked, "Do you remember that loss your sophomore year of college? Against ASU?"

Of course she remembered the loss to Arizona State. Finch and her Arizona Wildcats softball team held a 1-0 lead in the seventh inning of the game when she walked a batter before giving up a walk-off home run two batters later.

It snapped Arizona's 38-game winning streak over ASU that spanned several decades and was a pivotal moment in Finch's career.

She told the audience she remembered hugging her dad after the game and as she buried her head in his chest said, "Dad, I don't want to lose again."

That loss was the end of her team's streak over its rival, but it also was the beginning of her 60-game winning streak, which is the NCAA record that still stands today.

"Things like that, those moments that hurt you along the way, they help create and shape you," Finch said. "Embrace it and be the best you."

That point, "be the best you," was driven home several times throughout Finch's 30-minute speech.

"I always say, 'Don't be a second-best somebody else,'" Finch said. "You are beautifully and wonderfully made to be you. *... Be the best you."

She often expressed the need to move on from inevitable failures in sports.

"Those college coaches, they're going to want to see you do great things," Finch said. "They're going to want to see you break records. They're going to want to see you make diving catches, make amazing plays, putts. But they're going to also watch you when you fail because they're going to see what type of character you have. And I can tell you, I have so many friends that are college coaches now, that young girls lose college scholarships from one bad attitude, or one gesture or one word spoken. OK? Make the right choices. There's consequences for choices. Make the right choices."

Finch, who won a national championship with Arizona and a gold medal with Team USA among other accomplishments, encouraged the student-athletes who were finalists for a Semoball Award to be an example for the next generation.

"You don't have to have a Semoball Award to be a role model," Finch said. "Somebody right now looks up to you. I don't care who you are, how old you are, there's little eyes watching you. *... Make an impact on someone else's life. Be that impact. Be that encourager. This is a dark world, be light. Surround yourself with good people.

"This life is a negative, scary world. We can choose to live in the negative or we can choose the positive. My strongest tool isn't my right arm. My strongest tool isn't this wrist, these skinny legs. My strongest tool is right here between my ears and so is yours. It's your mind. You have to believe and this is where it starts. That negative voice will want to come in and it will want to take over you, but you've got to knock it out as soon as it comes in."

Finch said the things she learned as a softball player extended beyond the field.

"This game has taught me so many life lessons that transcended way beyond the playing field -- teamwork, leadership, discipline, sacrifice -- things that you've been doing day in and day out to get where you are today," Finch said. "Everybody sees you on the stage, they see you winning awards, they see you winning championships. They don't see your blood and sweat and tears that went into it. It takes a lot of hard work and I commend each and every single one of you for going above and beyond."