Thanks to Olympics, Granger Feels Itch to Pitch

Michele Granger had it all figured out. Once her college career was over, she would put away her glove and cleats and never play serious fast-pitch softball again.

Nice try.

“I felt I’d done all I could do,” said Granger, the former Valencia High star who is one of the great pitchers in fast-pitch history. “The real world kicked in a bit. I had job interviews, got a few offers. Then the whole Olympic thing kept whirling around in my head.”

In 1996, softball will debut as an Olympic sport and Granger wants to be part of it. That helps explain her participation in the U.S. Olympic Festival, which begins today.

“I knew I couldn’t go to Olympics and try out for the Olympics and possibly make it holding a full-time job,” she said.

So she decided to put her career on hold for a while. She and her husband, John, an attorney in San Francisco, are moving to Alaska in September for his job. Granger can work out there, but hopes to be in the Lower 48 a good deal of the time playing and giving clinics.

The arrangement will mean big sacrifices for both. Granger’s desire is fueled in part by a feeling that there is still more to accomplish.

Never mind that she pitched 36 no-hitters in high school or that she was a three-time All-American at Cal and ended her career with six NCAA records, including career strikeouts (1,640) and shutouts (94). Never mind her 119-52 record at Cal, which included 22 losses by the score of 1-0.

Granger’s goal in college was an NCAA championship ring, preferably a handful. She came away with zero, and only one trip to the softball College World Series.

“I went in saying ‘I want to take this team and want the team to win the College World Series,’ ” she said. “In high school, every year there was an improvement. In college, I didn’t feel like every year we improved. That was a big disappointment.”

Most disappointing of all was last season, when despite an earned run average of 0.50, her record was only 30-15--not up to Granger’s standards, by any means.

“I think in college I let myself go a bit,” she said. “In college you’ve got a lot more things to worry about, one of them being grades. In the last two years, I spent a lot of time in the library. If you’re spending it there, you’re not on the field.

“I didn’t want to end my career on what was sort of a bad note. Teamwise, I just didn’t feel like that’s really where I wanted to end at. I thought I’d give myself the summer and see if I still felt I could be competitive.”

She is playing on a Women’s Open division team from Los Angeles and has her sights set on trying to make the U.S. national team in September.

“That’s the big thing for me,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to handle sitting down and watching other people play at an event I wasn’t part of. I’m trying to make sure I wouldn’t have any regrets.”