Ignited by a Love For the Game and a Home Education, Olivia Dean Makes Lasting Impact on Vikings Softball Program
7 min read
Redshirt Junior softball shortstop Olivia Dean, a next-string All-Significant Sky honoree this season, hadn’t stepped into a classroom till her freshman yr at Centralia Community College around her dwelling. It was a difficult expertise and the reason she did not take her Division I expertise on the softball diamond directly to that stage.
That was for the reason that her moms and dads David and Jana Dean selected to homeschool their two young children. Her mother, a psychological efficiency mentor, “preferred my brother (Samuel) and me to be free to discover what we have been intrigued in and concentration on really recognizing who we are as individuals,” Dean said.
“Transitioning from remaining homeschooled to public university was absolutely a quite daunting working experience. I had never ever sat in a classroom or had to choose an in-class test, so I was very nervous,” she explained.


And, acquiring the community college choice close by her Chehalis, WA dwelling turned out to be a best first phase for her. “Everybody at Centralia Faculty was incredibly variety and supportive and aided me discover a whole lot. They created me experience extremely at ease remaining there. I believe it was fantastic for me to move out of my comfort and ease zone and encounter what college or university is like.”


Dean arrives from an athletic family members and both equally dad and mom played sports at Centralia Local community University.
Her grandfather Dean coached football, baseball, golf and wrestling at Centralia Significant School. Due to the fact homeschooling still left her somewhat sheltered, “it was a frightening believed likely any place far from household to continue my instruction. I realized that both equally my grandpa and dad performed at Centralia, and I imagined what a neat way to go on a family members custom.”
Though she was homeschooled, Dean had access to the area university sports activities groups. In the Centralia school district, homeschooled kids ended up allowed on school groups and Dean took entire advantage of that solution.


Her moms and dads provided her very first ball and bat at age five. “It was so enjoyable for me. I was keen to be component of a workforce and make new close friends and have new activities.”


She also joined grade school soccer and middle faculty basketball groups but her mom and dad “nudged me in the path of softball, and it was not difficult for me to ‘bite the bait’,” she remembered. “There was something about softball that intrigued me far more than any other sport at the time, maybe due to the fact my mother and father played softball and baseball and I just imagined it was definitely cool”.


If she had to pick one detail she’s savoring about her softball vocation, “It was the associations I have attained by way of this video game. From incredible mentors and coaches to lifelong friends and teammates. Devoid of this activity I would not have the outstanding people I have in my life. Coach Meadow has mentioned it time and time all over again, in 15 several years we will not likely recall the rating of the game titles or the mistakes we make, we will don’t forget the persons that have been by our side and that couldn’t be more true.”
She lettered in softball four periods at WF West Significant College and her team won condition championships in 2015 and 2016. Dean acquired initially workforce All-League and All-Meeting all four yrs, was named the team’s most improved and most inspirational participant in the course of her time there. She acquired the Coaches award in 2017 and 2018.


Dean arrived to the interest of PSU Head Softball Coach Meadow McWhorter just about by incident.


“In 2018, I was recruiting present-day university student athletes, Paetynn Lopez and Olivia Gray, observing them in a superior college district playoff video game. I spotted this very talented shortstop. She experienced ‘it’. Athleticism, command of the discipline, management, fast…she was taking part in major”, said McWhorter. But, she was likely to neighborhood higher education.


McWhorter, who took the neighborhood higher education route out of large faculty herself and retains a close eye there for possible gamers, put Dean on her juco observe list. The Vikings scheduled Centralia for a recreation the upcoming year to consider Dean even further.


“Our team knew we were being hunting at her as a recruit. Our squad was unanimous. She was the fantastic match for us, so we had Olivia down for her formal check out alongside with our massive 2020 group of probable freshmen…and the rest is record,” claimed McWhorter.


For her section, Dean was at first attracted to the thought of enjoying with her old higher college teammate Lopez. “At the time I met the coaches, I thought the society they established for the group was a little something so exclusive. The benefit and adore they have for their group and the group they have made was outstanding. I required to find a plan where my values matched with the workforce, and I could not have requested for a much better healthy (it also aided that Portland wasn’t way too much absent from Chehalis),” said Dean.


She discovered the pace and depth in the game different from her group college or university encounter.
“I would say there is far more of a strive to contend. The expertise and means I’m surrounded by in D-I softball is amazing. Currently being with these kinds of talent makes every person far better. There is constantly a new bar established and a new conventional of what it signifies to be a competitor,” Dean mentioned.


In her 1st period at PSU, Dean started off in all 41 video games, had the third greatest batting normal (.398) slammed 5 doubles, a person triple and a home operate for a slugging percentage .437. She experienced a 12-activity hitting streak and ranked 3rd in the Large Sky with 10 stolen bases.


Whilst she appreciates her talent on the industry, McWhorter likes most the intangibles Dean delivers to the team.


“I’ve under no circumstances coached a person like Olivia Dean. She radiates positive energy. She plays the recreation with so substantially enthusiasm and gratitude. She leads with love. When you fulfill Olivia, what you see is what you get—a truly wonderful human getting,” McWhorter stated. She outlined Dean’s “conversation, grit and management” as her intangible qualities…her athleticism to make huge performs, arm power, velocity and tools at the plate as her tangible kinds.


Even with the group faculty changeover, Dean was bothered about Portland’s sizing.


“I was a little bit skeptical about dwelling in the town just mainly because it really is quite nation the place I am from. I are living in a very modest town and shut group, so it was terrifying to assume I might be residing suitable downtown,” she reported. The moment she settled in, although, she delighted in the benefits of PSU’s downtown campus. ‘Portland is just so occupied. There’s always anything going on and so lots of folks. Which is what’s so exciting about this town. You can find usually an chance (for a thing new).”


The Dean relatives experienced pet dogs, chickens and a rabbit and “Juice” (as Dean is identified on the softball staff) claimed they had been some of her ideal buddies when she was younger. “I experienced two dogs from when I was 4 yrs aged. I swear my chickens had been a single of my beloved issues about my childhood. It was so significantly entertaining to have them as chicks and then elevate them into hens. My canines were my very best close friends. Anytime my brother and I would perform exterior when we had been younger, our pet dogs had been our greatest companions,”


Even though she explained she would not transform her homeschooling experience for nearly anything, Dean does see strengths and weaknesses.


The greatest power, she stated, “is my sense of self. I had the opportunity to master who I actually am from a younger age and remain accurate to my individual values and morals. My mother raised my brother and me to remain accurate to the men and women we are and to obtain like and gratitude in all the things.”


The weakness: “not emotion as organized as individuals my age who experienced a general public college practical experience. A little something I have definitely struggled with is feeling that I’m not as smart as other individuals about me, but I’ve figured out that intelligence is not measured by a quality.”


A business enterprise major who hopes to choose in excess of her family’s floral business in Chehalis, Dean produced the Academic All-Conference list as a junior.


McWhorter thinks Dean’s unusual history has labored for her and has made for a pretty distinctive human being who is owning a big effect on the Viking softball application.


“What she provides to this group and our program is immeasurable. She produced our application far better in the 1st thirty day period. She produced our communications superior her mental overall performance and outlook on the game are contagious. My hope is that she continues to educate and direct. With the youth of this group, her impression is sizeable. It will last very long outside of her time in a Viking uniform. That is the final compliment to who she is.”

