Considering that Rhonda Revelle is the winningest coach in the history of Nebraska (male or female) as well as the winningest softball coach in the program’s history, she’s done just about everything. While it’s been a while since she felt the ups of going to the Women’s College World Series since 2013, she still feels like her experience might be the reason things didn’t hit her as hard as she thought they might when NU won the super regional this past weekend.
It’s not that Revelle doesn’t feel the emotions all these years later; it’s just that she knows herself enough to know when she has to guard against her gut reactions. The Cornhuskers coach talked about that during the regionals as well. She had to talk to herself and make sure she was regulating what she was thinking, doing, and saying.
“So last year, after we won our first super regional game, my phone just started blowing up. We were one game away,” she explained to the assembled Nebraska media on Monday. “And I started— i didn't, I don't know that—I felt the weight of it, I felt all the love. And in feeling all that love, I'm like, it just was overwhelming. The emotion was overwhelming to the point that can I still function the way I need to function? And I thought, you know what, if we get ourselves in that situation again, I need to make sure that I've got parameters around my emotions because I'm an emotional person. And so I think I've just put the guardrails up a little bit.”
Revelle also noted that, despite knowing she needed guardrails, she’s well aware of how special it is for the entire program to reach the Women’s College World Series. Despite coaching in Lincoln for more than three decades, she’s only gotten to Oklahoma City four times.
Rhonda Revelle and Nebraska softball are trying to stay steady as OKC emotions build
Those guardrails certainly worked, because when she was asked when it hit her that she and Nebraska were going to the WCWS, she said it took a little time.
“I think it was this morning because yesterday I just felt, I didn't feel numb, I just felt like, you know, I was doing laundry, I'm at home. And I'm like, 'Oh yeah, we're going to Oklahoma City.' And it was actually, I sent Ava [Kuszak] and Hannah [Coor] for a text last night. I'm like, 'We're going to Oklahoma City.' It's kind of just hit me in waves.”
It’s possible her reaction to getting to the Women’s College World Series was very similar to how a lot of Nebraska fans felt. Part of the numbness for fans isn’t necessarily that they put up emotional guardrails, but that the Huskers were so dominant, the regionals and super regionals went by in a flash.
Of course, Nebraska fans also put up emotional guardrails automatically these days. Too many years of hoping the football team, basketball team, or even the baseball and softball teams will make a real statement, only to see them fall short, have left the general public from giving in to hope too much.
Perhaps with the way this winter and spring have gone, Nebraska fans can just relax and enjoy the ride, while hoping Rhonda Revelle and her team keep the ride going as long as possible.
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