Grad student named top female athlete

UD grad student Kristen Mills (right) meets five-time Olympic medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee at the Salute to Women in Sports.

3:56 p.m., Dec. 15, 2004--UD grad student Kristin Mills, who pitches for the USA Baseball Women’s National Team, recently was honored at the Women’s Sports Foundation’s 25th annual Salute to Women in Sports. Founded by tennis legend Billie Jean King, the foundation recognized 100 champion female athletes from all different sports and raised $1.8 million to help programs advancing the lives of girls and women through sports and physical activity.

In attendance at the awards dinner were, among others, figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi, volleyball players Misty May and Kerri Walsh and golf professional Annika Sorenstam. Along with Mills, two other members of the USA Baseball Women’s National Team were honored.

Mills summed up her experience at the Salute to Women in Sports awards dinner in one word--“surreal.” She said it was “amazing to see how the pro athletes get treated and how we got treated. We were treated like celebrities for the weekend--got our hair and nails done, saw famous people everywhere, practiced for the black-tie dinner and were introduced at a press conference and the dinner.” She also said that it was “amazing to be in the company of those athletes.”

Mills, who is working on her master’s degree in educational technology, is an athletic triple threat: She was the place kicker for Caravel Academy’s football team while in high school, she played basketball for four years while studying at the University of Delaware, and she now pitches with the first-ever USA Baseball Women’s National Team.

Kristin began playing baseball when she was 5 years old. She played T-ball, Little League, Babe Ruth League and was on the high school team at Caravel Academy. She also plays in a summer league in Parsippany, N.J., for the East Coast Yankees. Last year, she and her sister, Bonnie, an undergraduate at UD who also plays on the women’s soccer team, were among hundreds of other women who tried out for the USA Baseball Women’s National Team.

After watching hundreds of baseball players, the coaches chose Kristin and Bonnie along with 34 other women to move on to the next level of tryouts, which were held in Boston. From those 36, only 18 were chosen to fill the roster. Kristin said that she was not so nervous about her prospects--she is a pitcher, and most women who tried out had softball, not baseball, experience, so there weren’t many pitchers to compete with. She was more worried about her sister’s chances--as a fielder, Bonnie’s competition was stiffer.

However, the following Tuesday, the Mills sisters learned that they had both made the team. Last summer, they traveled with the team to Japan and Canada, and won the first World Cup of Women’s Baseball in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

They also took the silver medal in the Women’s World Series IV held in Uozo, Japan. Kristin was selected as one of the World Series’ Top 10 Players, after she threw a five-inning no-hitter in the first game. There is talk, she said, that women’s baseball will be added to the list of sports included in the 2008 Olympics held in China.

Article by Emily Longwell-Grice, AS’05

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