Despite the lack of a home field, the Bison women’s softball team remained top in their division as their fall season came to an end on Oct. 13.
For 25 years, the team has faced the challenges of securing a stable home field for games and practices and transportation to the practice field, looking to the city of Washington, D.C. for support and additional resources. They currently practice and play at the Washington National Youth Baseball Academy and rely on a player carpool for transportation to practices and an official team bus for games.
Administration, staff and coaches have attempted to accommodate the team in any way possible in hopes of gaining more ideal resources.
“We’re landlocked here at Howard University,” Chevonne Mansfield, executive athletic director and senior women’s administrator for Howard athletics, said. “It can be challenging for the softball team, with their situation. They don’t have a dedicated homefield on Howard University’s campus.”
She said the only conflict with practicing and playing at the Washington National Youth Baseball Academy is its location in Southeast D.C., which makes it challenging to get there for practices.
“The team practices at Greene Stadium and Banneker,” Mansfield said. “We’ve accommodated the team as much as we can to make it easier for them, and you can see the results on the field.”
The Bison earned a program-record 32 wins this past season, despite their less-than-ideal practice arrangements. Head Coach Tori Tyson praised the student-athletes for persevering through the program’s challenges.
“For the young women who have gone through this program, you have to be able to do hard [things] really well, or this becomes exhausting,” she said. “Navigating two different facilities in one day while trying to be a regular college student and enjoy the perks of Howard can become draining.”
Mansfield said transportation is logistically challenging for the team and that they absorb any obstacle, including costs, to make things easier.
“Not having anything indoors, like a covered dorm to practice in, being in the mid-Atlantic during the winter time, sometimes it gets difficult,” Mansfield told The Hilltop. “Some teams in the South benefit more than us just by being in the South. They are able to practice more and play more than we are, but we try to support them as much as we can.”
Tyson said she began communicating with the mayor in 2018, when she first took on the role of head coach.
“Howard made the leap to Nats and I don’t think we left Banneker in great standing financially,” she said. “These were decisions made before my time. So when I got back with the city, there was a little bad blood, especially with somebody who has a little league team.”
Unlike some of its SWAC (Southwestern Athletic Conference) counterparts, Howard’s location in D.C. doesn’t allow for the university to build. Tyson said the school is very landlocked, making space a prominent issue.
“[The city] agreed that they would pay for the irrigation and all Howard needed to do was come up with a number… that number was never presented, so we kind of lost that slot with the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation,” Tyson said. “The city was at one point willing, but with gentrification, the people who are moving in want dog parks and stuff like that.”
Unwilling to rely solely on Banneker as the solution, the administration plans to build infrastructure in Greene Stadium to support batting cages.
“There’s enough space on campus for us to get a batting cage. I believe that a cage is feasible. To come to Howard and not have a cage on campus is something that we can be better at and at least help us two to three days a week. Administration has assured me that this is something that could be coming soon,” Tyson said.
To accommodate the team during the spring season, Tyson has moved their spring training to California, where she has access to more facilities.
According to Mansfield, Howard has been working towards potentially using Banneker in a more formal capacity.
“We still want to do it. The benefit of that is that it’s right across the street. The community would be able to see us play, and practice would be easier. However, obviously, renovations are needed. It’s not a college softball-regulated field,” Mansfield said.
Alyssa Vasquez, a senior sociology major and sports administration minor from Eastvale, California, and a catcher for the team, told The Hilltop that, “Many people will say that the lack of resources should impact our play, but it has really motivated us to do all we can with what we have.”
Vasquez said the team’s lack of resources means they must get creative and use resources such as practice fields and parks around the city.
“Practicing on Greene Stadium for other schools may not be ideal, but for us, it is something we stem from and call home,” she said. “However, having to transport to our field, which is 30 minutes away, can be hard sometimes, with only certain girls on the team having cars.”
Vasquez said the team has to adjust their schedule and wake up earlier than most teams to ensure they have time to practice and train before classes. The team has learned to adapt to challenges by being grateful for the resources they have.
Vasquez refuses to let outsiders view the team’s challenges negatively. She said people often see them from a negative angle, but the team doesn’t see them as such.
“These challenges make us better on and off the field,” she said. “We’re honestly grateful for these obstacles. That’s what makes us, us.”
Vasquez shared a message for the administration, hoping to improve the resources and facilities.
“Although you all continue to look past what we have and how little we have compared to other schools, I want you guys to see everything our team has endured and all the successes we have accomplished with so little,” she said. “I want you guys to put your time and money into this sport because we will do anything to have what other schools have.”
Zafirah Doss, a junior sports medicine major, psychology minor from Hayward, California, and a catcher for the Bison, expressed her experience of the team’s circumstances.
“Not having a dedicated field for our Division 1 softball team puts us at a significant disadvantage. It directly impacts our ability to train effectively and perform at our best,” she said.
Doss said the team’s performance suffers from inconsistent practice conditions similar to actual games.
“It’s frustrating, but on the flip side, it also pushes us,” she said.
Tyson believes they have earned everything and hopes the administration is working hard to get players what they need.
“Howard women are the strongest women in the world, and this is just another example of how women are resilient. My duty as a coach is [to ensure] that the journey of the Black woman doesn’t have to be hard,” she said.
Copy edited by Jalyn Lovelady
