VBlogG

PAPILLION, Neb. — In the decisive moment, Jordy Bahl unleashed her distinctive hop and long stride toward the plate to coax another futile swing. Oklahoma catcher Kinzie Hansen jumped out of her crouch, tossed the yellow softball to her right and sprinted toward Bahl, a new superstar in college sports.

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They collapsed to the infield dirt in a pile of crimson-clad bodies, celebrating a sweep of Florida State and the Sooners’ third consecutive national title at USA Softball Hall of Fame Complex in Oklahoma City. Fans roared, and an ESPN audience that averaged 1.9 million viewers watched.

Four days later, on June 12, Bahl announced ground-shaking plans to transfer from the Sooners at the height of their shared dominance.

Why leave?

Oklahoma won its final 53 games this season. It finished 61-1 and lost just four of 124 games during Bahl’s two years in Norman. Bahl started the Women’s College World Series clincher last year against Texas and finished it this season before the Sooners partied into the Oklahoma night with Toby Keith.

Twice a first-team All-America pitcher, she was named Most Outstanding Player at the WCWS this month for her 24 2/3 scoreless innings in the circle over five games. Her collegiate record is 44-2, and she allows fewer than one run per seven innings.

The moment! 🤩#WCWS x @OU_Softball pic.twitter.com/rdkh66otE1

— NCAA Softball (@NCAASoftball) June 9, 2023

“She’s a once-in-a-lifetime kid,” said Larry Swift, director of the Nebraska Gold club program Bahl played for before college. “She’s going to be your Cat Osterman-, Jennie Finch-type who anybody in softball, anybody outside of softball, may notice.”

So, what compelled the star of the moment on one of the best teams ever to pack up and leave a legacy in progress?

The answer, according to Bahl, involved her feelings of unfulfillment and imbalance amid all the success. She felt the need for more than the pursuit of rock star expectations. She wanted to go home to Nebraska.

For Bahl, the smell of sizzling bacon on Saturday mornings in the fall months of her childhood called her home. Her dad, Dave, while tending to the kitchen, would crank the University of Nebraska fight song over the speakers attached to the computer in their two-story Papillion, Neb., home near Omaha.

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“Sweet memories,” Jordy said.

Dave and Emily Bahl raised a Big Red “N” on the flagpole in their front yard alongside a replica of Lil’ Red, Nebraska’s inflatable mascot. When the games began, Dave, Emily, Jordy and her brothers Hayden, Broden and Bryson, as their busy schedules permitted, gathered to watch football and eat chips and dip with Lit’l Smokies.

Upon inspection, it’s not so surprising that Bahl chose to come home after two seasons.

What’s surprising is that she left Nebraska in the first place. Former coaches, old teammates and the people closest to Bahl said they suspected she never wanted to go away.

“She wanted to be a Husker,” said Todd Peterson, who coached Bahl’s softball teams at Papillion-LaVista High to three state championships in Nebraska’s largest class.

Home for two weeks, Bahl has barely stopped smiling. She signed photos Friday, accompanied by her Labrador retriever, Remi, and met fans at an event in the Omaha Baseball Village outside of the venue for the Men’s College World Series.

Two hours in, a middle-aged shopper approached Bahl as she sat at a table inside a merchandise tent. “Are you Jordy Bahl?” he asked, unaware she had scheduled a meet-and-greet. “I just want to tell you how much I admire you.”

Bahl committed to play at Nebraska before her freshman year of high school in 2017. Circumstances intervened to deter her plans.

Notably, Oklahoma offered everything Bahl thought she wanted.

During her time with the Sooners, though, her priorities changed. The homesickness and discontent worsened from her first year at OU to her second.

“That’s when I started knowing that my heart was at home,” she said.

Bahl displays three tattoos on her electric right arm: an outline of the state of Nebraska on her biceps that she had inked while at Oklahoma in the spring of her freshman year; a “champ stamp” on the forearm of the Roman numerals for 22 and 23, her national championship seasons at OU; and the words of Proverbs 28:1.

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“The wicked flee when no one pursues,” it reads, “but the righteous are as bold as a lion.”

To know Jordy is to know her family.

Dave Bahl recently completed his 20th year as a firefighter in Papillion. As Dave, a captain in rank, attended the WCWS three weeks ago, co-workers texted him a photo of their phones stacked on the console in the medic unit so they could watch Jordy pitch as they refueled at the Papillion Public Works Complex between calls.

Jordy’s older brother, Hayden, teaches middle school in Papillion and coaches at both of the district high schools. He played baseball at Nebraska-Omaha. Broden plays football at nearby Midland University. Bryson is an emerging star in basketball as a rising high school junior.

Shew grew up playing ball in our parks, studying in our schools and was raised on the earnings of a City of Papillion employee with all of her brothers. Her mother grew up in this town and there’s not another place on Earth we would have wanted to raise our family. #HomeTownPride https://t.co/6aP3Nogt6b

— Dave Bahl (@DaveBahl) June 8, 2023

Home is where Jordy played family Wiffle ball in the backyard. A tame first inning often gave way to trash talk as the games turned overly intense, according to Dave.

Dave sometimes had to eject one of the boys for unruly behavior. Once, a metal bat whirled past the head of a Bahl boy, thrown in a moment of anger. The competitions usually ended prematurely amid hurt feelings.

“Someone had to win, and someone had to lose,” Dave said.

Jordy’s favorite memories involve those times — the Saturday football mornings and nights at home with her parents, her brothers and their dogs on the back patio, watching games on TV with a firepit blazing.

“It doesn’t sound exciting,” she said, “but that’s how we are.”

When Bahl left Nebraska two years ago, she wanted an immersive softball experience.

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“I had never been away from home,” she said. “I was like, ‘Softball, softball, softball.’”

She got it.

But Bahl discovered the game she loved fit as only one piece in her bid to feel complete.

Her faith was another piece. She had grown up in the church, Bahl said, usually “going through the motions.” Seeking to better herself, she leaned on Oklahoma teammates.

To those Sooners, she’s grateful. Bahl said if she faced the decision again, she would pick Oklahoma out of high school. Without the past two years, the growth she’s experienced would not have occurred.

“But I realized that I’d taken some things for granted,” she said. “Being away has led me to appreciate home even more.”

Family factored, too, in her desire for balance and happiness.

“My family is super important to me,” Bahl said. “So is my state. It’s home. And so it got to the point where I’m like, ‘Hey, why am I suffering in my happiness under the weight of softball when it’s not everything? Why am I doing that?’”

Sometimes after a softball game in Norman, 470 miles from home, Bahl sat on her couch, she said, and wondered, ‘Well, what do I do now?’”

On the exterior, all seemed well. It wasn’t.

Late in her freshman season, pain in Bahl’s right arm worsened after she made an overhand throw. It was “excruciating,” she said, even to touch the area near her wrist. Tests shortly before the NCAA postseason revealed a stress fracture. Bahl chose to try to pitch.

“That’s why people go to OU,” she said, “for the postseason. You want to win. It was like, ‘Everything I worked for in my entire softball life is right of me. I want to play.’”

She missed the regional and super-regional rounds. The Oklahoma medical staff cleared her. If the stress fracture had led to a more serious injury that required surgery, she’d have recovered fully in the offseason. Bahl pitched nine innings in three appearances during the WCWS.

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Last fall, to start her second year with the Sooners, Bahl said she looked at everything through a “black and white” lens.

“Unless it was exactly how I wanted to perform a drill or execute a pitch,” she said, “it sucked.”

Great performances on the softball field brought happiness.

“But happiness fades,” she said.

And the expectations rose.

“That team was so good that they carried this burden with them all through the season,” Dave said.

Winning wasn’t enough. The Sooners had to dominate. The coaches felt the pressure, according to Jordy’s dad. The players felt it, he said.

“And it takes a lot of joy out of the game,” Dave said.

Jordy shrugs it off. “Pressure’s a privilege,” she said.

Oklahoma players often sign autographs for young fans after their games. Time does not exist to accommodate everyone. Chris Plank, the radio voice of OU softball, said he watched a girl cry this year when Jordy couldn’t get to her.

“They’re like The Beatles,” he said.

The fact is, Oklahoma softball is a loud program. In the quiet moments, though, Jordy struggled.

Dave Bahl, watching Jordy pitch through injury and battle feelings of unfulfillment, had seen this kind of resilience from his daughter before.

After Jordy’s senior season of high school — in which she was named the Gatorade National Player of the Year — her Nebraska Gold club team needed to win four games in one day to stay alive at the national tournament.

Dave grew emotional as he talked with Jordy on that 2021 morning in Huntington Beach, Calif. Softball connected him to Jordy’s youth. He sat on a bucket and caught thousands of her pitches. He figured her team would run out of gas. An era of softball would end in defeat.

Jordy still laughs at her dad’s doubt. She pitched three of the four games. Nebraska Gold won them all. Then, Jordy pitched a complete game one day later as her team captured the championship.

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“It’s raw tenacity,” Dave said. “It’s there, if you get to know the whole family. She has a tremendous amount of it.”

As the OU experience taught Jordy, softball can’t provide everything. When she needs balance at Nebraska, connections to her faith and family are easily accessible.

Home is 50 miles away. She’ll make the drive and grab some food at a familiar spot, connect with her parents or watch her brothers coach and compete. If Jordy times it especially well, maybe a family Wiffle ball game will await.

In the days before Bahl entered the transfer portal, even before Oklahoma won the national championship, whispers circulated that she might be leaving. Nebraska fit as the natural landing spot.

Billie Andrews, the Huskers’ All-Big Ten shortstop who has long known Bahl, heard the talk.

“I didn’t want to believe it until it happened,” Andrews said.

She was taking swings at the Huskers’ indoor facility on June 12 when a call came with the news. Bahl had announced her transfer from Oklahoma.

Andrews’ response? “Oh, my God, it’s happening,” she said.

Three minutes later, with her sister Brooke and fellow teammate Abbie Squier, Andrews FaceTimed Bahl. Several of the Huskers played in high school and club softball with her.

Instantly, Andrews said, they reconnected.

Nebraska coach Rhonda Revelle, on that Monday morning, was en route home from a funeral. Just before her dashboard lit up with texts about Bahl’s announcement, Revelle’s phone rang. It was Jordy.

Revelle’s heart skipped a beat. She has led the Nebraska program since 1993, won more than 1,100 games and taken the Huskers to the NCAA regionals 20 times, including each of the past two seasons, with three trips to the WCWS.

But rarely has she had an opportunity to recruit a talent like Bahl.

The Huskers’ initial pursuit fell apart in July 2019. Then-Nebraska athletic director Bill Moos placed Revelle on administrative leave to conduct an investigation into allegations by players of mistreatment and a toxic culture in the program. After six weeks, Revelle was reinstated.

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But Bahl was as good as gone. Revelle understood her choice.

“There was never a moment of anger or resentment or anything negative,” Revelle said. “I knew she loved Nebraska.”

She saw Bahl pitch in person both years at the WCWS.

“I was happy for her,” Revelle said. “I was never surprised by her success. But there were moments where I closed my eyes and went, ‘Oh, what could have been.’”

Revelle, too, had heard chatter this year that Jordy missed Nebraska.

“I thought in my mind, ‘Well, she could always come home,’” Revelle said.

The place.
The people.
The program.

Playing for the home team is a dream come true for @jordybahl. pic.twitter.com/ybiBvBZkxl

— Nebraska Softball (@HuskerSoftball) June 21, 2023

When Jordy called Revelle two weeks ago, they didn’t talk much about softball.

“We have always been big Jordy Bahl fans,” Revelle said. “She needed to know that she would be returning to a place that would be welcoming.”

Bahl asked to visit Lincoln. Two days later, Revelle took Jordy, her parents and her youngest brother, Bryson, to meet with administrators in academics and transfer eligibility. They had lunch at the training table, where Jordy reunited with several Huskers players.

The Bahls ate dinner overlooking the football field at Memorial Stadium. And they met with athletic director Trev Alberts.

“You don’t want to put pressure and stress on young people unduly,” Alberts said. “At the same time, I think it’d be naive not to recognize the kind of transformational, transcendent talent that Jordy has and the opportunity to further advance the sport that she loves in the state that she loves.”

The next morning, June 15, Bahl announced Nebraska as her choice. By the end of last week, the school had taken more than 2,600 requests to join the waiting list to purchase season tickets for 2024. It previously had a waiting list of 26, with 365 season ticket holders in 2023.

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Bowlin Stadium, the Huskers’ venue, is built to hold 2,500 fans. Nebraska is looking at options to increase capacity.

Also on Bahl’s visit to Lincoln, she met with NIL officials. Opportunities to cash in on her name, image and likeness will be plentiful. Already, she has arranged a few public events, like the autograph signing near the CWS. Friday night in Papillion, the Omaha Storm Chasers, Kansas City’s Triple-A baseball affiliate, plan a Jordy Bahl Night to celebrate her homecoming. But NIL did not influence her choice to come home, Bahl said.

Regardless, her impact will be felt. Bahl already has grown softball in her home state. Before pledging back to Nebraska, Bahl visited her high school, Papillion-LaVista, to appear at a camp with 130 girls. They all wanted a piece of Jordy.

“It’s like a swarm,” said Peterson, the high school coach, “like a mini-rock concert. She tries to stay out of the limelight, but she knows that’s impossible.”

Last week in Omaha, 15-year-olds Emma Jacobs of Centura, Neb., and Macey Jarose of Omaha, before a practice session with their Nebraska Gold 14U squad, were giddy just to talk about Jordy.

“I’ve followed her my whole life,” Jarose said.

The girls have met Jordy, who, at 20, carries the responsibility of a softball ambassador with poise and savvy.

“We have so much pride that we know her,” Emma said, “that she comes from the same club as us.

“It shows you that anything is possible. She always said it does not matter where you’re from.”

That is, until you come home. And it matters more than ever.

“I think she’ll be fine,” Dave Bahl said. “She’s back home. She’s got her support group. She’s got the people she loves.”

(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; photo: Brian Bahr / Getty Images)

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