Olympian Tyler Too Busy To Miss Home These Days

Remember when U.S. softball player Dani Tyler failed to touch home after hitting a ball over the fence in the Olympics? Well, the truth can now be told.

She meant to do that.

Tyler’s gaffe came in a 2-1 extra-inning loss to Australia, which as the host country for the 2000 Olympics will decide if softball will be included again.

Since then, several of Tyler’s friends have suggested she might end up a hero if the Australians decide to include the sport because of the excitment generated by their upset win over the eventual gold-medalists.

“So I did it for the sport,” Tyler said. “It was all planned.”

Tyler can joke about it now because her team went on to win the gold. Plus, Tyler’s notoriety has opened avenues of opportunity that will keep her on the go for the next several months.

She has thrown out the first pitch in a game at Wrigley Field and played in a celebrity slowpitch tournament in Chicago. Her calendar is rapidly filling with clinics and speaking dates, which she’ll have to fit in while completing her senior year as an accounting major at Drake University.

Tyler has made several such appearances already and laughed along with everyone else when some of the groups presented her with a home plate. It’s turning out to be the best mistake she ever made.

“I guess I have gotten a lot more attention, and in a good way,” Tyler said. “When it happened, I thought, ‘Oh, this is going to be with me for the rest of my life. I think I’m going to go to Mexico and hide.

“But it really, to me, wasn’t that big of a deal. And it’s part of sports. Bad things are going to happen.”

When Australia’s Joanne Brown hit the game-winning home run that day, she hopped on the plate with both feet. Tyler didn’t do that because it’s not her style. Too cocky in her view.

“I just kind of walk by and start giving high fives. I know a teammate was right behind home plate and I went to give her a hug and stepped over it by that much,” said Tyler, holding her thumb and forefinger barely two inches apart.

“You can react two ways,” she said. “One, you can argue, run up and down the field and look like a jerk, or two, ‘Hey, it’s over, it was dumb, very dumb,’ and move on from it. And that’s kind of the way I looked at it. That’s the way I was brought up - learn from it and move on.”