Humber softball, a second family

By: Julia Vellucci
Humber Athletics Communications

Rilee Devries described being on Humber's softball team as having a second family that reminds her not to be as hard on herself as she is.

"Having 17 other girls who are probably the same amount of hard on themselves or even more, be there and be like 'You got this, keep going, you just got to work on it,' all that stuff is really helpful," Devries said.

"I live in a house with a couple of them, so living with them has made us all so much closer. We're always at the house together, hanging out. I definitely do need those girls more than I think I know," she added.

For the season, Devries hoped to beat St. Clair, as the Humber Hawks had not beaten them in her time playing for them. However, that goal was surpassed as the Hawks swept them for all three.

Now Devries wants the team to keep up the energy on the bench and support each other because softball can be a tough sport.

"You're going to fail more times than you succeed. We just try and keep each other upbeat and through everything," she said.

During last year's offseason, Devries almost quit as she had a very hard time during the season, but her teammates made her realize that she needed them, so she returned for them.

"Instead of playing for myself, I now play for my teammates," she said.

Devries is currently in her second year of Humber Polytechnic's sports management program and plans to go into coaching, whether in the summer for young children or when she's older with college softball.

"The whole summer I spent teaching these two girls how to pitch and hit your spots, get the push off the mound, stuff like that. I'm already kind of into it and I really enjoyed it that summer. I definitely want to keep doing that when I get older," she said.

"The two girls I coached were in house league, and they wanted to go up to the next level. My advice to them was just be confident in yourself," Devries continued. "Once your confidence goes, you got nothing because then you're going to let people get in your head, you're going to get in your own head and be like, oh my god, I can't do it."

"But if you keep that confidence, you'll be okay; that was one bad thing; what can I do to fix it? And then, once you fix it, how can I be better from that?" She added.

Devries knows the coaching stuff will not happen right away and is okay with that. In the meantime, she hopes to bring game day operations to more schools, which she works with her coach, Dwayne, on at Humber.

"I'm hoping that I can take that and keep doing it at Humber or another school because not many schools have the varsity operations that we do, and they'll just have their team set it up," she said.

"I want to possibly bring it to more schools that don't have the game day operations so they can experience what our athletes get to experience at a home game at the school," Devries said.