A lineup card will do the trick when determining who’s at the plate or which player is waiting in the outfield to make the catch.
When it comes to Nelson County softball, though, it might be useful to have a family tree go along with that tool, too. Five players and two coaches on the varsity squad share the same last name: McGarry.
In addition to head coach Brett McGarry, his brother, Scott, fills the role of assistant.
Then there’s Sarah, Raelyn, Kalin, Ainsley and Kolbi, all players on this year’s team.
“They think we're all sisters,” said Raelyn, acknowledging it’s understandably hard for outsiders to grasp the exact relationships of the McGarrys.
The five on this year’s squad aren’t all siblings, though.
Sarah and Ainsley are sisters, and Kalin and Kolbi are also sisters. Raelyn is their cousin.
All told, there are three sisters along with three sets of two sisters in the school-aged McGarry generation, Scott explained, in the easiest way possible. All of them have made their way into or through the Nelson varsity softball program, but this year marks the largest contingent ever of McGarrys on one team.
To those outside the county, and members of other programs, seeing that many instances of the same name on one roster may be a bit of a surprise, Raelyn said. But around Nelson, everyone knows the famous McGarry clan and their roles in Nelson athletics.
“I think people around here just kind of know [how it is],” Raelyn said. “I think people outside the program will be confused, maybe.”
In addition to the five McGarry players, there’s also another set of sisters on team: Senior Kalley Seitz and sophomore Megan Seitz.
To the McGarry girls, playing for their dad and uncle “feels normal,” Sarah said, because nearly their entire lives have been spent together on the softball field, from T-ball on up.
“Our coaches have always been family friends or family,” she added.
The hours on the ballfield together have turned into years for the McGarrys, who now know each other inside and out. It’s a dynamic, they say, that helps their chemistry and ability to advance in their skills.
“I think they’ve gotten used to us. They’ve been around us forever. They understand our quirks, and as they get older, they’ve been able to get past stuff a lot quicker, and that helps us as adults to realize that our kids get it,” Brett said. “When we get intense, whether it’s good or bad, they get it, I think, more than an outsider would.”
And when there are hard times — bad losses or disagreements, for example — Raelyn says the group knows how to get through them, easier than perhaps others might be able to.
Raelyn, Scott’s daughter, is able to communicate with her dad more easily because of their relationship, too, she says.
When she messes up, or reaches base thanks to an error rather than of her own doing, for example, he peers over the glasses he’s been coaching in for 20 years and just gives her a look that says it all.
“He’s always been my coach, but I’ve always just seen him as dad. He’s coached me forever, so he understands now that I know my game, too,” Raelyn said, “and I’m harder on myself than he is on me half the time. So if I do something wrong, he just looks at me; he doesn’t have to say anything.”
For years, Scott coached baseball and missed many of his older daughter’s games. After taking a year away to be “a softball parent,” he stepped back into coaching, only this time on the softball diamond.
“I probably coached them while I sat and watched, too. It’s probably best that I’m on this side of the fence,” Scott said jokingly.
Being able to experience the highlights that accompany any softball season with each other is one of the joys of coaching, Scott says. And the girls are in the same place.
Ainsley, a sophomore, got emotional when her sister Sarah hit her first homer last year as a junior.
“When she hit her home run I cried as she was running home,” Ainsley said. “… She’s my big sister, so I just got really excited.”
There are, of course, the times they also get tired of each other. With so many girls around, Scott says he and Brett often spend their “male time” alone.
“We mow a lot of grass on Sunday,” Scott said jokingly, adding athletes around Nelson know well his ongoing joke that sometimes when he gets home, he just needs to go talk to his male dog, Duke.
In addition to the times they just need a break from each other and softball, there are some negatives associated with being a McGarry on the softball team.
“All our lives,” the girls say they’ve heard Nelson softball is nothing but “the McGarry show.”
Brett added the girls have also “unfairly” been told they’re on the team for the name alone rather than their merits. But that’s not the case, he argues.
“I think it’s been tougher on our kids having to grow up with that,” Brett said. “With Scott and I being coaches, they don’t get a lot of credit for the work they put in.”
Having grown up playing softball with most of the other girls on this year’s team, as well, the McGarry girls know the team is about more than them, with Raelyn calling herself and her cousins “accessories to our teammates.”
“I think people should realize that this isn’t the McGarry Softball Team. It’s Nelson County softball,” Sarah said. “It’s everyone. That’s what makes this team so good.”
Brett agrees.
“We’re a team that goes by first names,” he said. “You’ve got to put the last names on the lineup that you turn in for announcements, but we’re a first-name team.”