30 |Sam Banister-Collaro Inspiring Journey: From Small Town Dreams to National Champs (Part 1)

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Catching You podcast. As you have noticed, there's a link in the show notes to send us a message. Lacey and I are taking questions to answer for future episodes.

[00:00:12] Send us your questions or simply drop us a message and let us know what you think of our show. Thank you and catch you guys on the other side. Take care. Hey everybody, welcome to Catching You. We had the pleasure of speaking with Sam Bannister Calero.

[00:00:30] And it's a two-parter. So this is for the first part. And I hope you enjoy it. Take care. So then we're like break off in the group and all of a sudden I see him driving up in a little golf

[00:00:41] car and he's sitting there. And it's funny because everybody knows me from my back, but my arm was actually my most favorite part of my tools. Like I can throw really hard over hand.

[00:00:52] And that was recruited as a third baseman because of my arm and my glove work. So I was like, don't this make every play as hard as you can. And he ended up liking me and inviting me back to summer camp.

[00:01:05] And it's funny because the girls in that video that I filmed that video with, one became my roommate, Janaye Lillis at Arizona and the other one was a year younger than us. But she went to Arizona State to play and she was the first baseman four-year starter.

[00:01:17] Welcome back everybody to Catching You. I am Rocobos Rusty Hamlin with my beautiful daughter Lacey. We just got done with the nice little bullpen working on fastballs and rise balls with us. Get a special guest, Sam Bannister. Welcome Sam, how are you? I'm good. Thanks for having me.

[00:01:41] Yeah. So we hooked up on TikTok. I love your content. That's the reason why I reached out to you because you have some great stuff that's going on and I wanted to bring you on.

[00:01:54] Not only because you were successful, obviously in college, we can get into that. You went to Arizona from 05 to 09, right? Correct. G-time national champion from in the 0607 played for the GOAT. Right? Good. Coach Andrea. Andrea, awesome stuff. So just before we get into that,

[00:02:21] your beginnings, right? Where did you grow up? Rec ball? When did you start travel ball? Just give us a background. So I live in South Florida now but I was born and raised in Northern California

[00:02:32] in a small little town called Petalima. I was fortunate to have a lot of land growing up. We had cows and horses and my dad built me a softball field when we were younger because he knew

[00:02:44] that I was really into it. My mom always told me this story. I would say, why did you get me into softball? You were three years old. We took you to the local fair and you won the throwing contest.

[00:02:54] We knew from there. How could you possibly know I was going to be good at three? She was like, no, Sam, I'm telling you. It was really good. It was a really good. So I grew up in Petalima

[00:03:04] my whole life and my dad was my coach up until my sophomore year of high school. And I played on the local teams until I started going to college. They would take me like,

[00:03:15] there's a little camps around and they started realizing like, you keep getting talked to at every camp. Like you keep getting put in all the best group when you're younger. And I was

[00:03:25] like, oh, damn it. Okay, cool. I just really liked this because I get to talk to a lot of different people and meet different people. And then I started going to camps and my

[00:03:33] parents excited. Like my mom especially was like, listen, if your relationship with your dad is going to survive and you're going to want to continue to play, we got to get you on a team

[00:03:43] where your dad is not the coach. Like you got to learn. And also, I was a product of, I was pretty good. I was young. So I always played up. But with that, people would be like, oh,

[00:03:53] it's only because your dad's the coach. And I would be the first one to sit so the other kids would get fair playing time. And I would, I'd be so pissed off like during pregame,

[00:04:02] like knowing that I was not playing. And I would just make it almost like bitter toward my teammates and my dad and their parents. This is so unfair. I have a freaking baseball field or softball field

[00:04:13] in my pasture. Like I'm doing this every day, but yet because my dad's the coach, the first one that has to sit out. And so my mom was like, put you on a travel team. And that was probably one of the most eye-opening experiences of my life.

[00:04:28] Because I got to play for a man named Don Ford. And he was responsible for putting a lot of girls in college. And like, our main feeding tunnel was to Cal Berkeley, because we were pretty close to

[00:04:41] Cal and Stanford. And I will never ever forget the very first because we didn't have, they didn't have tryouts. They just had a workout. And we go to this workout and I'm like, teen girls out there, they're already on the team. And that was like very different

[00:04:55] from the 11, 12 girls that were on our local team. And I remember he's got so pissed off at everybody. He was like, all right, that's enough. Stop practice and line up in an order of importance

[00:05:07] to the team. And I'm like looking around and there's like me and this other girl, we were there for a workout. And I'm like, what are you important? Like what the... And so he goes

[00:05:17] and he's like, obviously I'm on the end with this chick because like we don't are not on this team yet. And he's like moving his players. Nope, you're here. Nope, you're here. And like

[00:05:26] physically pulling them out of line. And I'm like looking at my mom and I'm like, what the hell did I just get myself into? I don't... If travel is all I'll think of

[00:05:34] it for this. And I ended up playing on that team. And I've never learned so much about the game. Like he was intelligent when it came to it. But I was also incredibly scared of

[00:05:46] him. And I'm like, okay, can we try a different avenue of a travel theme than this guy? And then I got on another team and that ended up being the team I played for

[00:05:55] until I went to college. But yeah, travel softball growing up with my dad till sophomore year, I could handle it. And then I was like, okay, I'm ready for something new. Yeah, you're right. 15 years old. And you're like...

[00:06:07] Yeah. And we're going to, I don't know what you would consider a B-ball tournament and like the local tournament. And you don't really know if you're trying to go to college and they're asking you and you're going to these camp, who you play for. And

[00:06:18] you're like, oh, I play for the Petaluma Steel Breeze. And they're like, oh, city's in front of that of your team name. It's probably not a very competitive team. So we're going to get you, let's like maybe look into a better travel team. I'm like, okay,

[00:06:31] talk to my mom. She's in charge of all that. There you go. Yeah. Did she, did you get recruited on Dawn Ford's team or? No. So I went to a team called R&R Gold Nother Batbusters in Northern California.

[00:06:47] And I played for a man named Mr. Rick Paula. And it was funny, Dawn always told me they wrote our list out and it was like, what colleges do you want to go to? And I wrote Arizona. And he was like,

[00:06:56] just go ahead and take this off your list right now. And I was like, okay. But interesting, it motivated me. And I remember when I signed, Mr. Rick Paula got me in front of Coach Andrea.

[00:07:07] And I ended up doing pretty well at Nationals and they liked me. And I wrote a letter back to Dawn Ford. My mom was like, you want to write a letter to him? I'm like, I do. I,

[00:07:17] even though I was scared shitless of him, I learned probably the most I've learned besides from my dad, from this man and never spoke to him again. I think he's coaching again. I'm not

[00:07:27] sure. But yeah, I was like, man, thank you so much for literally teaching me everything. And also I never wanted to be last in order of importance ever. That is crazy. Order of importance. Like you're supposed to rake yourself?

[00:07:42] Yeah, order of importance to the team. So it was like really interesting because it was like the pitchers and then like their senior center fielder. And then I was just like, please get me out of here. Please get me out of here.

[00:07:57] Did you play other sports other than softball? Yeah. So I played volleyball in my whole high school career. And then I also played fall baseball in my freshman and sophomore year of high school, like on a separate league.

[00:08:13] But I would not recommend that to anybody because there's three sports that one time and I ended up getting mono. And my mom was like, fine, like breathe. I have these things

[00:08:24] in my neck. Like can I just take one of these days off? But I'm glad I did play multiple sports because I especially softball being so mentally mindfuck sometimes it was nice to

[00:08:35] play a sport like volleyball. That was so fast paced that you could recover and you get to hit things hard at other people. I liked that too. Yeah, I loved, I played volleyball.

[00:08:47] What junior year was? I got to play up until my junior year, but March my junior year was COVID. So I didn't get to play in my senior year. But I loved playing volleyball. Even if I sat

[00:09:00] the bench on varsity, I thought it was fun. Totally. I actually, and I liked volleyball more than I liked softball. I would just get her at softball. Yeah, sounds about right. So talk about these. So you're in the show. Talk about the recruiting process then,

[00:09:20] right? Because it's completely different, right? Because these girls now that are recruiting, they have a lot of things to think about. They have to think about and I think, do I want to just play this? Go to this college for one year and transfer because that's what

[00:09:32] everyone wants to talk about. How do I get recruited? Do I have to record every single workout session I do and upload it onto my personal Instagram? Yeah, before or before, I'm sure you were being recruited. What was that like then? You're a travel

[00:09:48] walk coach now we can get into that a little bit. Talk about the process back then. Okay. How did Kendra, how did he, how did you catch his eye? Okay, so I'm going to date myself because

[00:10:01] back when we were getting recruited, you had to send out film, but the internet wasn't the internet. So we had to hire this lead. I think her name was Kelly Jackson and she was in charge of the

[00:10:12] Mizzuno Jack team or all American Sports Academy. I forget which one. And it was, she would pair you up with two other girls and you would go up to I went up to Sacramento

[00:10:22] and for three, four hours be filmed this like recruiting tape. And then you'd order one and then you take them and then you'd burn extra copies. So I had to pick out 20 schools and I had to get

[00:10:33] their physical addresses for their softball coaches and write them on this paper and send them out and you'd either hear from them or you wouldn't. And when you hear from them, it was via mail,

[00:10:44] like not even an email mail. And they, if they liked you, they'd send you back a questionnaire and if they didn't, you just wouldn't hear anything. And Coach Andrea or Nancy Evans at the time was

[00:10:54] the pitching coach. And she was the one that I was actually corresponding with the most. And then they invited me or they just, they tell you when their camps are not really an invitation.

[00:11:04] And it was, I would go to the Arizona camp and I'd go to the UCLA camp. And I actually wanted to go to UCLA more than I wanted to go to Arizona.

[00:11:12] But they did not want to get, they did not show me any love like they would invite me back, but whatever. So I went to their camp. But she said I went to Arizona like giant summer or

[00:11:22] winter camp that he hosts. That's the Mike Candrea camp. And I think I told this story on TikTok where I, there were so many people in our group that I didn't get to hit with him. And my dad was

[00:11:32] like, we didn't pay all of this money for you to come down here and not have an interoperate code, Kendra. And I was like, what do you want me to do? He was like, he's eating lunch right

[00:11:41] there. I want you to go over and I want you to ask him if he could take a look at five swings. I'm like, dad, he's not even eating by himself. He's eating with him and the University of Minnesota

[00:11:51] coach and the Kent State coach and the entire Arizona self-help team, which by the way are young college self-help players. They're all gorgeous and they're all national champions and they're so intimidating. And I'm like, oh my God, it was so embarrassing. And I went up

[00:12:05] and I'm like, hi coach, can you watch me's wing a couple times and he's at everyone's looking at me and he comes over. And it was like right when the Mike Candrea

[00:12:13] hitting videos came out. And so before I went there, my dad was like, this is how you're going to learn how to swing no more bat slapping like we used to do back in the days. Like it's an actual

[00:12:22] swing. And he was like, wow, who taught you hit? I'm like your video to my dad watching them and he was like, wow, that's pretty impressive. Then we're like break off in the group.

[00:12:33] And all of a sudden I see him driving up in a little golf car and he's sitting there. And it's funny because everybody knows me for my bat, but my arm was actually my most favorite

[00:12:42] part of my tools. Like I could throw really hard overhand and I was recruited as a third baseman because of my arm and my glove work. So I was like, don't this up make every play throw as hard as you

[00:12:54] can. And he ended up liking me and invited me back to summer camp. And it's funny because the girls in that video that I filmed that video with one became my roommate, Jenae Lillis at Arizona

[00:13:05] and the other one was a year younger than us and she went to Arizona State to play and she was the first base for a four-year starter. So it's funny because we're like,

[00:13:12] did we, for all of us, did she put us in that group or did we just like give each other all good luck being in this video together? A little bit different, not like today, very different than today for sure.

[00:13:26] Yeah, so talk about that. Now you're a travelable coach. So I want to hear it. So Arizona Okay. I'm national champ. She has her ups and downs in college. She has her ups and downs during

[00:13:44] recruiting, right? She took a line drive to the head during her second year of 14. She couldn't play in summer, which is a very, which was a huge recruiting time. Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:13:56] So she has a lot of PTSD. She has some, you know, mental health issues there as far as going to college as well. What were some ups? Obviously, there's some ups you have two-time

[00:14:05] national champ. Talk about the down times where, you know, because mental health wasn't an issue back then, right? It was never really talked about. Now it is. No, but we, when they're already like mental blocks, they were starting to introduce the, what are they called?

[00:14:25] Like a mental coach at school? Like do you go and talk to? I forget. For psych. They were starting to introduce that my junior year of college, they brought someone in and like visualization and just like someone

[00:14:38] that we could actually really talk to. But like I said, I was raised by a radio cowboy who didn't believe in emotions or anything or physical hurting about any sort. So it was just like, wow, if I'm killing like this, just follow it and get over it.

[00:14:52] But my roommate actually was, she was our catcher and she lived with the sports psychologists a lot and it helped her tremendously. And I remember thinking what a great thing to have for maybe

[00:15:05] other people that aren't necessarily as numb in the brain as I am. But my sophomore year, I went from never being injured my entire career, never literally having any injuries and my,

[00:15:17] you know, my freshman year that we played UCLA on my birthday and there was a play at the plate and I dove because I was at first and I was like cut off, I dove and I leaned it on the mound and

[00:15:26] it just located my rib and pierced my lung. And it collapsed my lung and I remember being like, man, I can't breathe. Oh man, this hurt for me God, but whatever, I'm not gonna say anything.

[00:15:38] And my roommate at the time was pissed off and she got out and she threw it like we were doing warmups and she threw it up the line and I moved and I was so pissed at her like,

[00:15:47] God damn it. I'm already hurting and now you can't even throw. So I chucked the ball as hard as I could back in her, missed her and almost hit our assistant coach. He comes like stomping out there

[00:15:57] and he put the helmet, can't breathe. Something dropped with me like it was my arm. I'm sorry and thank God because they ended up taking me to the doctor and he was like, oh, you have a

[00:16:08] pneumothorax which is a collapsed lung. And I was out for three weeks, which was the three weeks of our first road trips. We were going to UCLA, Washington, Cal, Stanford, Oregon, state, well back to back,

[00:16:19] we have a collapsed lung, you can't fly because if the other one collapses, you're dead. Here I am, my freshman year, never having an injury. Then going to finally getting to go back home and

[00:16:29] play in front of my family, can't get on a flight and that's three weeks in a row, couldn't practice thinking I'm gonna have to have like surgery to reinflate my lung. And I'm just

[00:16:37] like, and by the way when you're injured, you don't go and you know, you don't practice with the team. I couldn't go with them to anything. I just was sitting there watching and you feel

[00:16:48] so isolated and alone and by yourself, can I ever remind us of being injured first as an athlete is so weird because how you work through things is with your sport. Like I'm feeling sad today,

[00:17:00] I'm gonna go hit. I'm mad at my mom, I'm gonna go hit. Now I have this thing where I'm injured and I want to deal with it and the way that I cope with it, I can't even use that. So how,

[00:17:10] what do I do? And actually, I leaned really heavily into prayer and kind of trying to find like a higher power in Jesus and I took my route with that. But the sports psychologist

[00:17:22] probably would have been incredibly helpful had it been there. But I'm very fortunate that my mom is my mom and I was able to communicate with her. She actually came down and stayed

[00:17:33] with me while I was hurt. Yeah, as an athlete, I tell my girls all the time too, like the mental side of it when you're done playing is even more of a mind. Because how you've done and

[00:17:46] coped with everything your entire life is no longer there. And so now you have to find like a different outlet to be able to like problem solve. And so that's one of my biggest

[00:17:55] reasons of trying like of being involved in travel softball right now is to try to educate my players like when you're done playing, don't figure out what you want to do. Don't just hurry up

[00:18:04] and get married and have a kid like I did. Like I just, I don't know what to do is I'm going to get married and have a kid and it was yeah, wasn't even my husband that was my first husband.

[00:18:13] So the mental aspect, the mental stuff is very big. And if I had somebody to talk to, I think it would probably would have been a different route. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, bloody spallion week. The girl last week and she said the same

[00:18:27] thing when she talked to the L. She said that was probably the most mental, mentally exhausting part of it was because it was during COVID too. So she was all by herself grabbing and you guys go I'm

[00:18:38] sure with practices and just the travel boss, it's constant, right? You don't have a heat you don't have time off, right? You might have a week of Christmas and that's about it. And so you're just constantly going and going. But then you get injured and you find out

[00:18:54] that's probably the most mentally challenging part because you've never been injured before. You don't know how to react, you know how to deal with it. You talk to I lost strength and as well edit this out. I had somewhere my mind.

[00:19:10] I'll talk about but this past last or this last semester I had like terrible information in my shoulder, which I've never experienced before, which like the year before I just said,

[00:19:25] oh, I'm a terrible knot in my shoulder. And we'd always trying to rub it out and it just wouldn't go away. But then it finally caught up to me my fall semester. And it was like right when

[00:19:37] fall ball started was when my trainer was like, yeah, you're cut off for a month, like you cannot pit. So I'm just going to all our fall ball games, which is it's not like

[00:19:46] the most important part of the season, but it's like your way into connecting with your teammates and especially as a pitcher, like I want to establish my pitches and all that stuff right in the fall

[00:20:00] so that I feel good going into winter break and then going into January. But I didn't, I think I played like one fall ball game like two innings, like at the very end.

[00:20:12] And I just felt like it definitely wasn't as terrible as when I had my the ball to my head, but it was definitely like a time where I really wanted to pitch and I worked that whole summer

[00:20:28] to come into the fall and establish myself and then got taken away for a certain amount of time. And it's just I had, I definitely went to our sports psychologist a lot more during that time

[00:20:42] and it's very beneficial. And I, that's, I think it's needed a lot more nowadays. Absolutely. And as a female, I don't know if you felt like this, but like, you only have so long to play, especially as we get older, like now I'm like older.

[00:20:58] I figured it out. Like I'm never taking anything for granted again. And now I'm hurt again. And I know I only have so much time left. Plus, I feel like I'm letting my team down.

[00:21:07] Not to mention, like I know I'm way better than I would last year and I want to come out here and show everybody how good I am. And then you can't really. And the thing about injuries is

[00:21:15] like you can't control it. That's the part. Like as athletes, we're so used to be able to control our training, control how we recover all of these things. And when you can't do it

[00:21:24] and they shut you down for a month, it's okay, a month is like a year in athlete time. Yeah. I'm sorry. That's gonna be it. That sucks. So, Sam, you touched upon life after college a couple of times before we got done the podcast.

[00:21:40] You mentioned something about what you did immediately after graduating from college. Because you touched on it and we've talked to there's a few that we've spoken to that they're done. And then just, you know what? Because you've been in so many players really

[00:21:55] don't have an avenue after college. There is pro sports, but it's a very small person to even move on. So what about your experience and maybe why you chose that after college?

[00:22:10] Okay. So when I played and coach Kendra's number one thing was get your degree. Like you're gonna graduate. He had a 99% graduation rate. That was what it was. But athlete back when I played,

[00:22:22] it was like we were there to play softball. We were there to compete and to win the University of Arizona a more national championship. And there wasn't a whole lot of, yeah, there was like

[00:22:32] internships in the summer that you can take, but there were two for the entire athletics department and it wasn't really pushed. And so it's like you hurry up to like win-win and

[00:22:42] now all of a sudden it's, oh, it's done. And for me, I only heard the eligibility part like just be eligible. I didn't realize like the classes that I failed, I had to take again when

[00:22:53] I was done playing softball. And I remember coach Andrea being like, we are awarding you with your fifth year fully paid for. I'm like, oh my gosh, but also like why? Because you failed seven

[00:23:06] classes, Sam. Like throughout your four years, you've failed seven and you have to get those credits. Oh, you don't get it? Taking the class? He was like, no. So my fifth year, I was just like,

[00:23:19] I wasn't playing. I was determined to get out and I was like watching all my teammates like, I'm sure you'll figure that like Lacey, like when you're done playing, like your team becomes a

[00:23:29] whole new team anyways with each year. It's like a new culture, a new dynamic. And I wasn't a part of that, but I was still in Tucson and it was horrible. And I ended up meeting

[00:23:40] like a older man from like my hometown that was friends with my family and we started dating and he had a career. He was a cop and I was super intrigued by the fact that he was so grown and

[00:23:51] I was so not. And I did not know what I wanted to do. And so I just immediately moved from college, graduated and moved back in, moved home with him. And then was like, okay,

[00:24:02] I'm not doing like, I needed a break from softball. Like after living in Tucson and not being able to play and training every day. Oh, by the way, when I was a fifth year, I still have 10 hours

[00:24:11] of study hall. So I was still like a student athlete, but I wasn't actually doing the athletics part of it. So I was like annoyed and I just was like, I need to take a break. So I got married,

[00:24:23] had my son took about from the time that I moved home to the time by the end of my marriage. It was about five years. And I just was like, and then I finally

[00:24:34] to get back into it, I had a family like ask if I would do lessons and maybe wanted to coach. And I had a one and a half year old and I was in there like, we'll watch him and we'll pay you.

[00:24:44] And I'm like, you know what? This is a great segue. And softball actually brought me back to life after that. I always tell my players, I'm like, of all of the big moments in my life

[00:24:53] from deciding I wanted to get a divorce to actually getting a divorce to meeting, reuniting with my husband now to moving like softball has always been a constant. And it's definitely helped me navigate real life events by just leaning into the game

[00:25:09] and being able to escape and all of those things. But yeah, I took five years off and got back into it and have not stopped since. Yeah. Yeah. This is, Lace, I know what you

[00:25:20] talked about because you're on your senior year. A lot of people when they're seniors, they either, they've enjoyed their process and they don't want it to end or they've had a verge

[00:25:31] of their life. I want to get the hell out of here. One is just going to be. Yeah. My RSLATX department is huge with career being very career oriented. And we have internship segues. There's a student athlete internship program at Adobe, which is like 10 minutes from

[00:25:50] us since we were in like the Silicon Valley. So there's a lot of connection in the job industry for our student athlete and they really push that more because I think we had a lady that

[00:26:04] started a program that for player development to make those connections like with the San Jose fire department, the San Jose police department, the tech companies, like all these different avenues that we could go. And they made sure they're like, you're not going to be

[00:26:20] playing sports forever. You could if you wanted to. If you want to make money or you want to go into a career that you really enjoy, like they help us with those things. Yeah. We're,

[00:26:29] I'm very fortunate for that kind of area because I figured out what I wanted to do pretty early so I could get my degree and have a plan afterwards. That's part,

[00:26:42] I have a plan. I have a plan for it right now and pretty solid, but yeah, it could change in the future. But with one year left, I think I'm just, I'm going to try and enjoy it and just have it

[00:26:53] on the side. I know what I want to do, but try and find the balance of staying present with softball, but also I have to apply for graduation, apply for internships, all this stuff. So

[00:27:06] it's a crazy year coming up. Yeah. Enjoy it. Enjoy it. Enjoy it. That's all I can say is, but enjoy it where you're like genuinely just enjoying the moment. Like I made a mistake of

[00:27:18] this is my very last first ball practice. This is my very last fall game and even like my senior year, my very last game we were getting half-fled, murdered at the World Series by Alabama.

[00:27:31] And I think it was the biggest loss in what is called World Series history. So we have that and we only made it five innings. And I just remember like looking around and being like,

[00:27:40] I'm never going to take, I couldn't even enjoy the last couple moments of playing because I was so caught up in it ending and just trying to soak it all in that I almost, I don't know.

[00:27:50] I almost wish I didn't know it would be over so that I could have just really lived in the present moment. However, you can do that. Figure out how to do that because I'm sure it's so much more enjoyable. Thank you for listening everyone. I hope you

[00:28:07] enjoyed part one and we will have part two next week. Catch you on the other side. Lacey, I love you. Take care.