A journey from the depths Former Lodi athlete Allie Mendez’s difficult path led her to softball success at a small Christian school in Oregon
SALEM, Ore. — Allie Mendez meticulously raked the dirt along the third base line before a softball game at Warrior Field on the Corban University campus.
Part of her pregame routine is to manicure the bullpen area prior to taking the pitching circle for one of the premier NAIA softball teams in the country.
Routine is important for the hard-throwing, 5-foot-11 senior left-hander from Lodi.
So is attending classes at the picturesque, tree-lined, Christian college in Salem, and her recovery from drug addiction and attendance at meetings in a 12-step program.
What’s not routine is Mendez’s journey from being a standout youth athlete whose downward spiral through drug addiction led to street gangs, what she describes as a “drug-induced rape,” to finding God, followed by a renewed sense of purpose and athletic success at Corban.
“It’s moving. That’s a word a lot of people like to use,” the 27-year-old Mendez says of her story which she shared recently during a chapel testimony at Corban. “It’s not like a story that you’d sit down to enjoy.”
These days Mendez is so far removed from the depths of despair that “it’s like it happened to someone else.”
“God has removed me from dwelling on those situations,” Mendez said. “The memories that I’m making are around hope today and not of fear.”
Athletic roots
Mendez grew up in an athletic family. Her uncle, Mark Mendez, pitched in the New York Yankees’ minor league organization in the early 1980s. Sports came naturally to her, particularly basketball and softball.
She learned the fundamentals of pitching and hitting from her dad, John Mendez Jr., a softball and baseball umpire in Lodi.
“I believe her sister (Mandy) was 10, and (Allie) used to come out in the yard and I would pitch to ‘em,” Mendez Jr. said. “I would say Allie was probably 6- or 7-years old, out there swinging a little plastic bat.”
Mendez participated in her first national softball tournament at the age of 10, and several other national events in her youth, including the Babe Ruth World Series. Those were the good times. “She used to shine a lot,” Mendez Jr. said. Mendez was batting champion in the 2006 Babe Ruth World Series in Millville, N.J., representing the Lodi Extreme, and helped her 16-and-under softball team reach the semifinals. The following year she was home run derby champion.
Many of Mendez’s youth softball achievements were chronicled in her hometown newspaper, the Lodi News-Sentinel.
“I got this big award, with a big bat on a plaque,” Mendez told the News-Sentinel in 2006. “My name will forever be in the (record) books. It’s pretty unbelievable.”
Mendez Jr. said his daughter was talented enough to play Division I softball. But the road she traveled was long and difficult.
Introduction to drugs
At 14, Mendez said she was introduced to drugs and alcohol, and that’s when things began to change. Her grades slipped and interest in school waned. She dropped out of Lodi High School in her junior year.
Mendez began a relationship with a drug dealer and at the age of 18 was convicted of a felony for drug possession and drug trafficking. She served two months in county jail.
“It was extremely hard,” said Allie’s mom, Christi Mendez, an accountant for a manufacturing firm in Stockton. “I was able to go see her and hug her (in county jail). It’s not like she was behind glass and we couldn’t go and visit with her.”
Drugs continued to play a major role in Mendez’s life the next several years, including an addiction to heroin and methamphetamine.
It broke her parents’ hearts to witness Allie’s struggles with drugs, but they were unable to steer her back on course. At least not initially.
“We never knew the extent of the drugs she was taking,” Christi Mendez said. “Definitely not towards the end because it was like the worst of the worst.”
At 24, Mendez says she was “finally figuring out how to recover” from drug addiction.
Dark days
Rock bottom occurred during four months beginning in August 2012.
“She’d disappear for days,” Christi Mendez said.
The details remain painful memories for Allie and family members.
In her recent talk at Corban, Mendez said she has come to realize she had obsessivecompulsive traits as a child, which she said led to drug addiction.
“I think I was trying to recreate the feelings that athletics gave me,” Mendez said. “I sought that in these highs or adrenaline or relationships.”
New beginning
Mendez said she devoted her life to Jesus Christ the day after her 24th birthday.
“I was saved at a church,” she said. “I was encouraged by 12-step members to seek a concept of a higher power.”
The process of getting clean and a renewed interest in sports led Mendez to San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton, where head coach Jim Fisher gave her an opportunity.
Mendez discovered that through conditioning and hard work, her skills gradually returned.
“I got a call from the athletic secretary and she said, ‘Hey, a girl just came in and wants to play softball and she was very athletic,’” Fisher recalled. “I said, ‘OK.’”
Said Mendez: “They had no idea who I was. They knew I was a drug addict and that I wanted to play softball.”
Mendez played sparingly as a freshman in 2014, but the following season a player Fisher would affectionately call “Big Lefty” was a starting pitcher and all-conference outfielder for the Mustangs.
It took Fisher a full season before he realized he had a pitching talent on his hands. Mendez was just happy to be in a healthy environment.
“It’s funny, Fisher to this day will tell me how much he regrets not red-shirting me my first year,” Mendez said with a chuckle. “I told him that I threw, but it had been like six or seven years since I pitched.”
In the summer going into her sophomore season at Delta College, Mendez worked with the pitching coach every day, “and he was like, ‘You’re definitely a pitcher.’”
“We recruit about 30 girls a year, but there are certain ones that stick out and you’re pulling for,” Fisher said. “You hope when they leave they have the tools to be successful at the next level.
“So when we check on Lefty, there’s always a smile.”
Path to Corban
Several high school softball players that then-Delta College assistant softball coach Jeff Borges coached made their way to Corban through the years. And Borges had a connection with Nathan Ohta, who was Corban’s head softball coach at the time. Mendez wanted to attend a Christian college and Corban seemed like a good fit.
In July 2015, Mendez was invited to a tryout. Dani Ackerman, a Dallas High School graduate and now a senior catcher for the Warriors, was her catcher that summer day.
“After about 10 minutes of throwing, she stops, calls me to the mound and I run out there,” Ackerman said. “I’m like, ‘Hey, what’s up?’ She goes, ‘Dani, I need God’s strength. I know we just met, but will you pray with me?’ ... We prayed for a couple minutes together and she took a deep breath and said, ‘OK, I’m ready to go.’”
That initial interaction left a lasting impression on Ackerman.
“She’s from California, I’m from Oregon, two very different backgrounds, very different stories,” Ackerman said. “Basically complete strangers, and here she is making herself vulnerable and saying I need help. I need help from you. I need help from God.”
The workout went so well that Ohta immediately offered Mendez a scholarship.
In time, she shared her story during a team testimony Bible study.
Ohta said there were no red flags when it came to bringing Mendez to Corban.
“Not just me personally, but student life and the institution as a whole felt comfortable bringing her in,” said Ohta, now an assistant softball coach at George Fox University in Newberg.
Past resurfaces
Last season Mendez helped Corban reach the Cascade Collegiate Conference playoffs. She hit .372 with five homers and 25 RBI, was solid on the mound with a 10-8 record and 2.77 earned run average and was named secondteam all-conference.
But a reminder of her past surfaced on a road trip to play conference opponent British Columbia. Corban players and coaches were required to show their passports before entering Canada. Mendez was detained because of her past felony.
“Eventually they told us they needed to look into her background a little more and they weren’t sure if they were gonna let her across the border,” Ohta said.
Players were asked three questions, including whether they had ever been arrested. Mendez was truthful about the felony conviction and received a puzzled look from the border patrol agent.
“Because I’m with a Christian college, he’s like, ‘What are you doing here?’ basically,” Mendez said.
An assistant coach and teammate stayed behind with Mendez while the rest of Corban’s traveling party drove across the border to the team hotel. Ohta was interviewed, filled out paperwork and stayed in contact by phone.
“We were praying for her when we got to the hotel,” Ackerman said. “We prayed that she would rejoin us that night.”
The matter was resolved in about four hours and Mendez rejoined her teammates in the middle of the night.
“I had never had my past hit me that hard in the face like that,” Mendez said. “I thought I had crossed all the T’s and dotted all my I’s with the research I did. What I had researched about the Canadian border was different from their regulations.”
Said Ohta: “I felt bad for her. She had shared her story with the team and they knew everything, but at the same time she kind of felt like she had let them down.”
Softball success
Truth is, Mendez has not let the program down on or off the field.
Heading into this weekend’s series at Eastern Oregon University, Mendez was 12-3 with a 2.29 ERA and hitting .327. Leagueleading Corban (37-7, 21-3 CCC) is ranked No. 15 in the NAIA coaches’ Top-25 poll.
“Her success story I think is pretty incredible,” first-year Corban head coach Abigail Farler said. “She’s gone through a lot of adversity to get to this point, being able to finish on such a high note with her career.”
Mendez’s parents have watched Allie play at Corban, and plan to attend senior day festivities, as well as the conference playoffs.
Mendez Jr. prefers not to dwell on the painful chapters in Allie’s life “because it hurts.”
“I keep telling her, ‘just keep going, you’re not done. It’s just the beginning,’” Mendez Jr. said.
Helping others
Mendez said attending Corban as a student-athlete “is what I’ve always hoped for as an athlete to experience.”
Although her eligibility ends after this season, Mendez will remain on scholarship for the 2017-18 school year and plans to graduate with a psychology degree. She aspires to work with at-risk youth after college and remain in Salem.
“Oh my gosh, we’re so proud of her. This is like a rebirth for us also, just having her back and her shining so brightly,” Christi Mendez said. “She definitely is the apple of my eye. There’s just no explaining it except that God stepped into her life.”
Mendez will celebrate three years of sobriety in July.
“I’m learning how to be content,” Mendez said. “Balance, happiness, and purpose is what I want in life and I definitely get that here. Everybody’s in good spirits.”
Including Allie Mendez.