Chatham’s Kelliann Jenkins refuses to let gender limit her dreams
Growing up in a baseball family in Potomac, Md., Kelliann Jenkins never questioned what sport she was meant to play. Her parents owned a youth sports league called Kidball Baseball, so she spent the bulk of her childhood on the diamond.
She, her brother Niko and sister Katie always played together from a young age, and when she started competing in organized leagues, she became accustomed to playing on boys’ teams.
“I always just played with the boys,” she said. “There were never really any issues with it. I never really got any backlash for it at all growing up.”
But when she turned 7 years old, she started feeling pressure to switch to softball, as do many girls at a young age.
“My parents thought that was their way of looking out for me — that more opportunities would come from softball,” she said. “Honestly, maybe even Division I sports would have looked at me. But I knew I always wanted to play baseball. I knew I was good at it. So, I just stuck with it.”
The decision she made in elementary school to stick with baseball carries through today. Ms. Jenkins went on to play at one of the most respected high school programs in the country and now pitches for Chatham University. As a rising senior for the Cougars who plans to use her extra year of eligibility, she is one of just six women in all of college baseball and one of 16 to ever play at the college level.
Ms.Jenkins avoided much of the criticism and skepticism that many of her fellow female baseball
players face. She never wondered if the sport was meant for her and always
tried to focus on her play on the field rather than the barriers she had to break to get there.
“Baseball is a sport that rewards all kinds of athleticism,” said Julie Croteau, the first woman to play NCAA baseball. “It rewards mental acuity. It rewards repetition and practice. It’s not purely a sport of strength. It’s hand-eye coordination, teamwork, all sorts of things. I’ve never thought it was a sport that belongs to either gender.”
Ms. Jenkins quickly learned that she had these abilities and sought out a high school program that would allow her to further develop. She landed at St. John’s College High School in Washington,
‘i knew i was good at it’
D.C., which has produced professional athletes across many sports. There, she played baseball and basketball.
“There was absolutely no free time,” she said. “My typical schedule in high school was waking up for morning workouts, then going straight to school right after, and then I would try to make an hour and a half of baseball practice. Then I would go to basketball practice. Sometimes, I would have a game, and then I’d have to get back up for workouts the next morning. But I loved it.”
Baseball was always her primary sport, and basketball was a secondary interest that she used to get noticed by colleges during her recruiting. She began attending prospect camps and tournaments for baseball with the hopes of getting scouted by coaches at the next level. At one camp she attended in the fall of her junior year, she was approached by multiple coaches.
“They were the first coaches that ever talked to me, and they were telling me how they wished that their players had battled on the mound like me, and they thought that if I wanted to play in college, there was definitely a spot for me somewhere,” Ms. Jenkins said. “Right then and there, they gave me the hope that I would find a place to go play in college.”
The following year, she attended a camp at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and was offered a spot on its roster. She played her freshman season with the Seahawks, following in the footsteps of Ms. Croteau, who made history as the first female college baseball player there in 1989.
“I think St. Mary’s has a more open framework in terms of athletes and a more open idea of what is possible,” Ms. Croteau said of her alma mater. “I’ve always felt that they’re on the cutting edge of college sports in that respect. So, I’m not surprised [Kelliann was offered a spot to play there]. I know when I was looking for a place to play, my family identified four schools where it was possible for me to play. I would imagine that young women who are looking to play college baseball are going to identify the schools where people have done it before as a place where it’s possible.”
Having strong role models was important to Ms. Jenkins as she progressed through the game, even though so few women came before her. She grew up reading books about the Negro Leagues and always admired those trailblazing women who made history decades ago. She also watched her older sister play, and while Katie didn’t play past recreational leagues before switching to softball, she inspired Kelliann to follow in her footsteps.
“I don’t know if I’d still be playing if I hadn’t seen her in that position ahead of me,” Ms. Jenkins said.
While the number of women in the sport is limited, one of her greatest role models was her brother, who went on to play Division I baseball at La Salle University.
“If you don’t see a girl in that position, don’t be afraid to look up to the guy that’s in that position,” she said. “I definitely looked up to my older brother for a really long time. Just wanted to follow in his footsteps and do what he was doing.”
She has never been afraid to pave the way either. In 2019, she became the first female player to play in the Cal Ripken Collegiate Baseball League, one of the top college leagues in the nation.
After reaching her goal of playing in college and spending a season at St. Mary’s, Ms. Jenkins ultimately decided to transfer to Chatham, which she said was a much better academic fit for her. She used the women’s basketball team as her in and later earned the opportunity to try out for baseball as well.
Head baseball coach DJ Cannon heard that she was interested in continuing her baseball career at Chatham and instantly wanted to give her a shot — despite never coaching a female player at such a high level.
“After having an opportunity to talk with her about her experiences, going over her strengths as a player and having an older brother that played D-I baseball, those types of things wrapped into one made it a really good fit for what we were looking forward to bring into our program,” he said.
“[It] really left no questions as to whether or not she deserved at least an opportunity to try out for the team and see if she could have an impact within our program.”
While her playing abilities made her an easy fit for the program, Mr. Cannon had some hesitations about how his other players would respond to a female teammate.
“Initially, I was a little bit nervous just as far as how maybe the team would perceive things or how she would be treated,” he said. “With talks with Kelli, she just wanted to play baseball, be a part of the team, not be looked at any different from anybody else on the team. If she was going to get playing time, she was going to earn it.”
Since joining the program, Ms. Jenkins has found both her coaches and teammates welcome her just as she would have hoped.
“They’ve never made me feel like I was any different from [anyone else],” she said. “They treat me the exact same. If I mess up, [my coaches] are going to yell at me the exact same. I really appreciate that when a coach can yell at me the same as my otherteammates.”
“I was very proud of the way our team accepted her and really just didn’t bat an eye when she stepped on the field,” Mr. Cannon added. “It was just as if anybody else was on the field, and that’s what we were hoping for. I know that was the experience Kelli was looking for, and I’m really happy to all those things worked out.”
Ms. Jenkins appeared in six games this season, recording three strikeouts and a 5.63 ERA. She also appeared in nine basketball games and started one against Waynesburg.
While the baseball field has always been the place she feels most herself, she said at times it can be hard to ignore her differences from those around her.
“I hate to admit it, but I guess I’m a little bit more comfortable when I’m on the basketball court than when I am on the baseball field,” she said. “I remember I was talking to another girl who plays baseball, and she was telling me how when she’s on the field, she feels like all these eyes are right on her. When I’m on the basketball court, I can just blend in more, and I can just focus on being me. With baseball, there’s other aspects that I worry about and that I have to focus on.”
The challenges that Ms. Jenkins has had to overcome and the risks that she has taken have all paid off, as she continued to inspire others who may hope to follow in her footsteps.
“In 14 years [of coaching], it’s right up there with some of the most rewarding and exciting milestones and achievements of players that I’ve had,” her basketball coach, David Saur, said. “Maybe I’ll have a daughter one day and, ‘Hey, you want to be a college baseball player? You can do these things.’ As somebody that’s been able to even do that and manage to play a second NCAA sport with women’s basketball, it’s amazing what she’s been able to do. She’s a great student. Just all of the above. It’s been amazing watching her journey, and obviouslyshe’s not done yet.”
There is plenty of work to still be done, but Ms. Croteau, who has watched the game evolve over the past 30 years and seen opportunities for women increase, is encouraged by the progress that has been made, which allows young women like Ms. Jenkins to play the sport that they love.
“Culturally, I think we’re starting to identify where we put gender that it doesn’t belong,” she said. “I don’t think baseball is inherently a sport formale bodies any more than softball is a sport for female bodies. Both genders can play bothsports, and it’s a matter of finding a team where your skills fit. It always seemed silly to me that we would put a genderon a sport.”
As for Ms. Jenkins, she hopes to keep playing throughout her college career, maybe even use her extra years of eligibility from COVID-19 to pursue a master’s degree and hopes to keep inspiring young girls like her to follow their dreams — no matter what others think.
“I think it’s just going to take girls to see another girl in that position,” she said. “’[You have to] see her to be her.’ That’s what it takes.”