Staff Stories: Samantha Ricketts
August 06, 2020 | Softball, HailStateBEAT
by Brian Ogden, Assistant Director/Communications
STARKVILLE – A reporter pushed her way through the aisles at ASA Hall of Fame Stadium in Oklahoma City on a warm June evening. She was looking for the Ricketts family as their daughter warmed up in the circle at the Women's College World Series.
Stephanie Ricketts had led Hawaii on a Cinderella run through the postseason. The reporter found her sister, Keilani, a rising star in the sport who had just wrapped up her freshman season playing for Oklahoma. Along with their parents, a third sister, Samantha Ricketts, was in the stands that night after finishing her collegiate career the year before.
The Ricketts family is softball royalty. The 2010 postseason began a run of four straight trips to Oklahoma City for the family, as Keilani made it the next three years. All three sisters were All-Americans. All three were drafted professionally.
Samantha came first, starring at Oklahoma from 2006-09. She was a two-time All-American and the first finalist for USA Softball's Collegiate Player of the Year award in Sooner history.
Stephanie was next and charted her own path by heading to the islands. It was the first time she didn't play on a team her sister had, and she became a three-time WAC Pitcher of the Year.
Keilani's resume is the longest. She too chose the Sooners and did her best to one-up Samantha along the way. She became Oklahoma's first USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year winner in 2012 and again in 2013. Keilani was a four-time All-American and won a national title in Norman before going on to play with Team USA.
There's one thing they don't have in common. Samantha is the only one who never played in a Women's College World Series. It's something her sisters know motivates her now as the head coach at Mississippi State.
"For me being able to go to the World Series was such a motivational thing," Keilani said. "Being a spectator there, it gave me the itch to want to be there as a player. For Sam to be able to go there and watch both of her sisters play and be there as an alum, I know it's something you just have to be able to experience. When you're there experiencing it, it gives you a different type of motivation to get your team there."
Samantha isn't a complete stranger to that storied diamond in Oklahoma City. She returned to the Sooners' staff as a graduate assistant and was in the dugout with Keilani in 2011.
"I got asked a lot, 'Man, you're the only sister that never got to play in the World Series,'" Samantha said. "I'm like, 'Yeah, but, by me not playing, can they get to play in it?' I'd much rather my two sisters get to experience it than me. I have the experience of being in the dugout as a staff member, and I think that was kind of the first time I was like, 'I want to get back here as a coach.'"
To understand Samantha's path to coaching, you have to go all the way back to the earliest beginnings of the sisters' journey in the game.
Her first sports memories are actually with her brother, Richard, another Division I athlete who played football at the Air Force Academy. They were on the same soccer team, the same YMCA basketball team and eventually the same baseball team. Samantha switched to softball in third grade, but her family, one synonymous with the sport, was more focused on basketball than anything else.
While plenty of American families play football games on Thanksgiving, the Ricketts had a full-court basketball game with aunts, uncles and cousins.
"It was normally a big, physical fight because that's just how we were," Samantha remembers. "It was competitive. My dad really played a big part in it, in making us practice and practice together."
Being the oldest sister, Samantha led the way. All three would play for the same teams in succession, and all three would wear Samantha's No. 10 so the family didn't have to buy new uniforms.
Their mom had played slow-pitch softball while the girls were very young. Samantha still remembers going to a few of those games. Their dad tried to start Samantha in the circle, but she didn't get the same pitching gene that Stephanie and Keilani did.
"I wasn't very good," Samantha said. "I didn't like it. I think the last game I threw in rec ball, I threw one over the backstop."
But as Stephanie and Keilani ran around the park during her games, other parents and coaches began to take notice.
"They were just these giant eight-year-olds and people kept telling them, 'They need to pitch. They need to pitch,'" Samantha said. "So it was a little more serious for them, and they had a lot of different pitching coaches. I was always involved. Because there's two of them, my dad caught one and I caught the other."
She didn't know it at the time, but backyard bullpen sessions would be the first step in Samantha's coaching career.
The competition didn't slow down in the backyard, and neither did the trash talking. Somebody usually ended up crying and their dad usually ended up yelling.
"They just weren't very good, for a while," Samantha said. "I remember my dad being like, 'If you throw one more ball over my head, you're going to have to run to the fence and back.' Of course they can't hit the spot, they miss and they've got to run. Or they'd throw one and hit me in the shin, so I'd throw it back at them at their shins. Then somebody would be in trouble and have to run."
Even now, years later, things haven't completely changed.
"She still gets hit in the shins," Keilani said.
But Samantha's relationship with her sisters developed key communication skills, both for them and when acting as a mediator between them and their father or other coaches.
"I still have her come out and catch me when I'm in Mississippi," Keilani said. "She knows me so well and she's been around the game that she gives really good feedback. It always helped us develop as not only pitchers, but on defense and with hitting as well. That's what I remember most, her just always being there to be like our personal coach at home."
That continued at Oklahoma. Samantha remembers one of Keilani's first games on a major stage against Washington with the expectations placed on her as the team's ace. Between each inning she came into the dugout frustrated, cracking under the pressure at times breaking down in tears.
"The pressure was too much, and she felt like the whole team was counting on her and she didn't know really how to process it," Samantha said. "By the end of that same year, we're of course playing Washington again in the Super Regional and she was just a completely different athlete. I mean, she was composed. She was poised. She was competitive."
As much as Samantha tried to help her sisters grow and develop with high expectations, they often created high expectations for her as well.
"All of her coaches always loved her," Stephanie said. "When Keilani and I came up to the team, we were always expected to be like her."
That expectation cut both ways.
"I used to get in trouble because of Keilani all the time at OU," Samantha said. "I never got in trouble as a player, I did everything right. But as soon as Keilani got there, I would get lectures because she wasn't listening."
Keilani and Samantha were reunited as coaches when Keilani joined the Bulldogs as a volunteer assistant for one season. A small part of Samantha enjoyed watching her get a sense of the coaching side and some of the frustrations she had felt when Keilani was playing, but she said it was a great experience for both of them.
"We were able to have these softball coaching conversations that we hadn't had before," Samantha said. "When I was a GA and she was a player, they weren't as productive. It was her saying, 'Have you thought about maybe approaching this hitter this direction,' or 'Hey, this worked for me.' It was really good to get a fresh perspective."
The softball conversations haven't stopped. Occasionally, the sisters cross paths during the season while Keilani is playing with the national team or her professional club. When they're in the same city, they'll stop by each other's games then head back to the hotel together and continue discussing film and approaches.
Of course, the family debate is still unsettled as to who was the best athlete.
"Those are fighting words!" Keilani said when asked.
Samantha maintains it's probably Keilani. She had the most natural ability, and being the youngest she grew up spending all of her time watching her siblings' practices, picking up a ball and soaking things in. But then again, Stephanie was the only one who played two sports in college, spending her fifth year on the basketball court.
Keilani gives Samantha the edge.
"They'll all say that I am because I'm naturally more athletic because I'm taller," she said. "But I'd say Sam probably because she was a lot shorter and she had to be a lot more feisty."
While they may continue to compete with each other, they're always going to support one another on the field. That support now finds much of its focus on the Bulldogs' softball program.
"I don't have regrets about not making it to the World Series as a player," Samantha said. "But as a coach, this is the goal. This is what I want to do. To kind of get a taste of it as a graduate assistant on the OU staff I think really kind of helped fuel that fire into the direction that my career has taken."
Keilani hopes the next time she's interviewed in the stands at the World Series she'll be able to look down and see Samantha standing on the field.
"Hearing how much of her has grown and how much she loves seeing the players grow, it would mean so much to be able to see them take that next step," Keilani said. "She really believes the program is capable of making it to the World Series. To be able to see it happen, that would be awesome to see all of her hard work and the program's hard work pay off."
STARKVILLE – A reporter pushed her way through the aisles at ASA Hall of Fame Stadium in Oklahoma City on a warm June evening. She was looking for the Ricketts family as their daughter warmed up in the circle at the Women's College World Series.
Stephanie Ricketts had led Hawaii on a Cinderella run through the postseason. The reporter found her sister, Keilani, a rising star in the sport who had just wrapped up her freshman season playing for Oklahoma. Along with their parents, a third sister, Samantha Ricketts, was in the stands that night after finishing her collegiate career the year before.
The Ricketts family is softball royalty. The 2010 postseason began a run of four straight trips to Oklahoma City for the family, as Keilani made it the next three years. All three sisters were All-Americans. All three were drafted professionally.
Samantha came first, starring at Oklahoma from 2006-09. She was a two-time All-American and the first finalist for USA Softball's Collegiate Player of the Year award in Sooner history.
Stephanie was next and charted her own path by heading to the islands. It was the first time she didn't play on a team her sister had, and she became a three-time WAC Pitcher of the Year.
Keilani's resume is the longest. She too chose the Sooners and did her best to one-up Samantha along the way. She became Oklahoma's first USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year winner in 2012 and again in 2013. Keilani was a four-time All-American and won a national title in Norman before going on to play with Team USA.
There's one thing they don't have in common. Samantha is the only one who never played in a Women's College World Series. It's something her sisters know motivates her now as the head coach at Mississippi State.
"For me being able to go to the World Series was such a motivational thing," Keilani said. "Being a spectator there, it gave me the itch to want to be there as a player. For Sam to be able to go there and watch both of her sisters play and be there as an alum, I know it's something you just have to be able to experience. When you're there experiencing it, it gives you a different type of motivation to get your team there."
Samantha isn't a complete stranger to that storied diamond in Oklahoma City. She returned to the Sooners' staff as a graduate assistant and was in the dugout with Keilani in 2011.
"I got asked a lot, 'Man, you're the only sister that never got to play in the World Series,'" Samantha said. "I'm like, 'Yeah, but, by me not playing, can they get to play in it?' I'd much rather my two sisters get to experience it than me. I have the experience of being in the dugout as a staff member, and I think that was kind of the first time I was like, 'I want to get back here as a coach.'"
To understand Samantha's path to coaching, you have to go all the way back to the earliest beginnings of the sisters' journey in the game.
Her first sports memories are actually with her brother, Richard, another Division I athlete who played football at the Air Force Academy. They were on the same soccer team, the same YMCA basketball team and eventually the same baseball team. Samantha switched to softball in third grade, but her family, one synonymous with the sport, was more focused on basketball than anything else.
While plenty of American families play football games on Thanksgiving, the Ricketts had a full-court basketball game with aunts, uncles and cousins.
"It was normally a big, physical fight because that's just how we were," Samantha remembers. "It was competitive. My dad really played a big part in it, in making us practice and practice together."
Being the oldest sister, Samantha led the way. All three would play for the same teams in succession, and all three would wear Samantha's No. 10 so the family didn't have to buy new uniforms.
Their mom had played slow-pitch softball while the girls were very young. Samantha still remembers going to a few of those games. Their dad tried to start Samantha in the circle, but she didn't get the same pitching gene that Stephanie and Keilani did.
"I wasn't very good," Samantha said. "I didn't like it. I think the last game I threw in rec ball, I threw one over the backstop."
But as Stephanie and Keilani ran around the park during her games, other parents and coaches began to take notice.
"They were just these giant eight-year-olds and people kept telling them, 'They need to pitch. They need to pitch,'" Samantha said. "So it was a little more serious for them, and they had a lot of different pitching coaches. I was always involved. Because there's two of them, my dad caught one and I caught the other."
She didn't know it at the time, but backyard bullpen sessions would be the first step in Samantha's coaching career.
The competition didn't slow down in the backyard, and neither did the trash talking. Somebody usually ended up crying and their dad usually ended up yelling.
"They just weren't very good, for a while," Samantha said. "I remember my dad being like, 'If you throw one more ball over my head, you're going to have to run to the fence and back.' Of course they can't hit the spot, they miss and they've got to run. Or they'd throw one and hit me in the shin, so I'd throw it back at them at their shins. Then somebody would be in trouble and have to run."
Even now, years later, things haven't completely changed.
"She still gets hit in the shins," Keilani said.
But Samantha's relationship with her sisters developed key communication skills, both for them and when acting as a mediator between them and their father or other coaches.
"I still have her come out and catch me when I'm in Mississippi," Keilani said. "She knows me so well and she's been around the game that she gives really good feedback. It always helped us develop as not only pitchers, but on defense and with hitting as well. That's what I remember most, her just always being there to be like our personal coach at home."
That continued at Oklahoma. Samantha remembers one of Keilani's first games on a major stage against Washington with the expectations placed on her as the team's ace. Between each inning she came into the dugout frustrated, cracking under the pressure at times breaking down in tears.
"The pressure was too much, and she felt like the whole team was counting on her and she didn't know really how to process it," Samantha said. "By the end of that same year, we're of course playing Washington again in the Super Regional and she was just a completely different athlete. I mean, she was composed. She was poised. She was competitive."
As much as Samantha tried to help her sisters grow and develop with high expectations, they often created high expectations for her as well.
"All of her coaches always loved her," Stephanie said. "When Keilani and I came up to the team, we were always expected to be like her."
That expectation cut both ways.
"I used to get in trouble because of Keilani all the time at OU," Samantha said. "I never got in trouble as a player, I did everything right. But as soon as Keilani got there, I would get lectures because she wasn't listening."
Keilani and Samantha were reunited as coaches when Keilani joined the Bulldogs as a volunteer assistant for one season. A small part of Samantha enjoyed watching her get a sense of the coaching side and some of the frustrations she had felt when Keilani was playing, but she said it was a great experience for both of them.
"We were able to have these softball coaching conversations that we hadn't had before," Samantha said. "When I was a GA and she was a player, they weren't as productive. It was her saying, 'Have you thought about maybe approaching this hitter this direction,' or 'Hey, this worked for me.' It was really good to get a fresh perspective."
The softball conversations haven't stopped. Occasionally, the sisters cross paths during the season while Keilani is playing with the national team or her professional club. When they're in the same city, they'll stop by each other's games then head back to the hotel together and continue discussing film and approaches.
Of course, the family debate is still unsettled as to who was the best athlete.
"Those are fighting words!" Keilani said when asked.
Samantha maintains it's probably Keilani. She had the most natural ability, and being the youngest she grew up spending all of her time watching her siblings' practices, picking up a ball and soaking things in. But then again, Stephanie was the only one who played two sports in college, spending her fifth year on the basketball court.
Keilani gives Samantha the edge.
"They'll all say that I am because I'm naturally more athletic because I'm taller," she said. "But I'd say Sam probably because she was a lot shorter and she had to be a lot more feisty."
While they may continue to compete with each other, they're always going to support one another on the field. That support now finds much of its focus on the Bulldogs' softball program.
"I don't have regrets about not making it to the World Series as a player," Samantha said. "But as a coach, this is the goal. This is what I want to do. To kind of get a taste of it as a graduate assistant on the OU staff I think really kind of helped fuel that fire into the direction that my career has taken."
Keilani hopes the next time she's interviewed in the stands at the World Series she'll be able to look down and see Samantha standing on the field.
"Hearing how much of her has grown and how much she loves seeing the players grow, it would mean so much to be able to see them take that next step," Keilani said. "She really believes the program is capable of making it to the World Series. To be able to see it happen, that would be awesome to see all of her hard work and the program's hard work pay off."
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