The 2025-2026 softball team have not yet started season play, but their story is already full of new beginnings. Just two weeks ago, several players began a new chapter of their lives as six players and a coach were baptized, and two became Christians.
Every Sunday after training, Drew Hall, a former Samford coach and current Christian author and teacher, leads the team in a weekly message with the support of the team and coaches.
“I think they’ve really been good. Especially as a way for us to connect to as a team,” sophomore pitcher MaKinley Turner said.
Although the time shared is optional for the team, players choose to make it a priority.
“Coaches made it optional, but we all choose to go.” sophomore infielder Ella Nelson said. “We all want to go.”
In addition to the message, the team pairs off and reads devotionals together that continue throughout the week.
During one message, Coach Hull asked if any players felt called to be baptized. Several players raised their hands, and coaches began to plan how and where a baptism could happen. In total, six players and one coach decided to go through with the decision.
“We really never thought about doing it on the field until I started thinking, ‘Well, we don’t have a pool, and we can’t get in the fountain’,” said Coach Megan Curry.
The following week, a portable tub used for ice baths was filled with water and brought to the softball field. The seven baptisms were held right on the field that the team practices and plays on every day.
Turner was one of the players who was baptized on the field.
“During Coach Hall’s message, God was just like calling on my heart,” said Turner. “The people here, their faith is so strong and they’re very confident in it. It helps me be able to step out, branch out and be bold like that.”
A pivotal part of the team’s culture rests on meeting each player right where they are, no matter what walk of life they come from.
“I think it’s a space where everybody respects where they’re at and it’s not forced on them to be in this place,” Coach Curry said. “We welcome the differences in who we are as a team, and I think that’s what actually makes us great.”
Players left the field that evening with a newfound purpose for the game they’ve loved their whole lives.
“Being amongst the baptisms and having it on the field and having the team together and pray together, I left feeling different,” said Nelson. “I feel like we play more for God than we do ourselves now.”
The lives touched through this evening will span longer than any season could cap it off to. “I’ve been through a lot on this field. I’ve played and coached. I’ve got a three-year-old and I’m pregnant,” Coach Curry said. “Nothing compares what that night was.”
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