Central's Brooke Parrott, center, shown with her parents, Rhsea, left, and Jody Parrott, recently signed her National Letter of Intent to play softball for Tennessee Tech in Cookeville, Tenn. Standing at rear is her brother, Brett.
photo by Dennis Norwood
It was the kind of story only a mother could tell about her soon-to-be college-bound softball playing daughter.
When asked when she first had a clue that daughter Brooke might have what it takes to play at the collegiate-level, Rhsea Parrott responded, “When she was around five I saw all these softballs rolling around in the backyard. When I took a closer look, there was Brooke, with a big bucket of balls, trying to pitch like the big girls.
She was attempting the big wind-up, all of it. I kind of thought then that she might one day realize a dream.”
Her dad, Jody, related, “I guess I never realized when she was a five years old, she’d be going off to college one day.”
Dads live in the moment, moms somehow see the future.
Brooke Parrott has realized a dream. Following her upcoming senior season with the Lady Pounders she will trade one purple jersey for another and head up the road to Cookeville, Tennessee where she will play for head coach Bonnie Bonham’s Tennessee Tech squad.
Pursued by MTSU, Lipscomb and South Florida, the vivacious blonde said, “Tech has a good education program (her major) and a good softball team.” Both were two key components for her.
Parrott continued, “I am completely comfortable with the coaching staff and I’m super excited to play for them.”
Bonham, a former standout pitcher for the Lady Eagles, should be a major force in shaping Parrott’s continuing pitching career. Central assistant coach Jerry Mongar related how he had watched Bonham unravel both California and Alabama in the same tournament. “Her ball placement will be an area that she (Bonham) will be a asset great to Brooke,” he said.
Parrott, herself, looks forward to working with her head-coach-to-be. “I feel like I have an opportunity to go in and start as a freshman,” she stated. That’s a point that she and Central head coach Lee Anne Shurette, agree upon. “I think that Brooke can have an immediate impact on that program and has the tools to start as a freshman.”
A three-year starter for the Lady Pounders, Parrott has accumulated 550-plus strikeouts while being an offensive threat with a .350 batting average. In her three years at Central she has been a major part of three district and regional championships, including a third-place finish in the state tournament year before last.
As for goals for her senior season, Parrott hopes not just for more wins as a pitcher, but for more total wins for her team. “I know we’re capable,” she says with a grin, “we're in conditioning right now and I think we’ll be better prepared, much stronger.”
She would also like to add to her more than impressive strikeout total and to earn a return trip to the state tournament. “I’d definitely like to make it back to state,” she stated emphatically.
For Parrott that should be an achievable goal. Shurette says of her starting pitcher, “She’s a workhorse. It’s nice she has a strikeout factor, that with the bases loaded or a runner in scoring condition, she can shut down a rally.”
Former teammate and now assistant coach, Britney Sylvester, remembers Parrott as “real fun loving, really peppy and having a lighter mood.”
Sylvester, who was a Central senior when Parrott was a freshman, went on to say, “Brooke always has had a fun-loving personality. She’s a good teammate who wants to fight tooth-and-nail for the win. She brings out the best in all the girls.”
In her time away from the diamond, Parrott enjoys shopping, going to the movies and coloring in adult coloring books.
The Tech signee also played eight years of travel ball for the Tennessee Fury Premier team, of which her dad is the head coach. Asked about his coaching relationship with his daughter, he laughingly said, “I call her pitches for her, but I don’t visit the mound any longer. Seriously, though, we do have a great relationship.”
That travel team has 12 signees at the Division I level, from Tennessee to MTSU and Tennessee Tech to Memphis.
Beyond her softball prowess, perhaps Central principal Finley King put it best, “I’ve seen you on the ball field and in the classroom. You hit a homerun in the classroom, too.”
(Contact Dennis Norwood at sportsshooter614@gmail.com; follow him on Twitter at @DennisENorwood)