Multiple Interests Lc’S Sarah Travis Lands Starting Positions Despite Spreading Her Talents

Sarah Travis doesn’t play softball year-round like so many of the players in the Greater Spokane League these days.

She doesn’t do any sport year-round.

She didn’t even play AAU basketball during high school, which she knows would have given her an extra edge in her favorite sport.

Travis has too many interests to focus on just one. There’s softball, basketball, volleyball, school, friends and her church youth group when she can fit it in.

“I think it’s kind of a shame to see good athletes focus on one thing,” said Travis, a senior starter for the Lewis and Clark High School softball team. “Sports outside of school are so demanding, and players don’t get to do other things.

“It’s necessary now if you want to be successful. I’d rather have a variety of things.”

Travis has done just fine without dedicating 12 months to one sport. She was a second team all-league selection this season in basketball, and made the 1999 softball first team as an outfielder.

She maintains a 3.6 grade-point average and earned one of LC’s two Greater Spokane League scholar-athlete awards last week. The GSL recognizes a male and female athlete from each school who excel in the classroom, community and athletics.

Travis will play basketball at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, Calif., this fall. Her 20-year-old brother, Jim, plays baseball at Westmont.

“She seems to catch up to the rest of the people just fine,” said Travis’ best friend and volleyball teammate, Amy Kauppila, who gave up basketball to focus on volleyball. Kauppila will play at the University of Rhode Island on scholarship.

“She doesn’t seem to get behind in any of the sports. She’s still going to college to play basketball, and she didn’t even have to play year-round,” Kauppila said.

Travis has grown up around sports. She was a Lewis and Clark kid from the beginning.

Her father, Jim, has coached Tiger baseball, football and basketball.

“When I was little, I remember my mom would pack my brother and me up and take us to football games,” said Travis, 18.

For Halloween, she and her brother would dress up in football jerseys and pads and play tackle football games against kids in the neighborhood.

“We’re a sports family,” she said.

LC volleyball coach Buzzie Welch remembers coaching Travis when she was in sixth grade. She was uncoordinated but could jump and hit the ball, he said. There was potential.

Last fall, she was the starting setter for the State 4A fourth-place Tigers.

“Sarah showed a lot of determination and patience because she developed always as an understudy behind someone else - until this year, when she was our only setter,” Welch said. “She did a great job, and all those years of training paid off.”

Welch believes Travis learned more by playing three sports than she would have if she had limited herself to one.

The top reason Travis plays sports is to have fun. You can’t worry too much about wins and losses, she said.

“I’ll get upset if we lose a game if we play horrible, but I don’t get upset if we play hard,” she said. “I think playing hard and having fun is better than winning.

“It’s not worth getting mad. You can only control so much.”

Travis said she has a laid-back personality and doesn’t get excited about the little things.

“I’ve played on lots of teams with people who are extremely moody,” she said. “I stay the same.

“I have good and bad days, but I’m pretty much level.”

Travis said she chose Westmont because it’s a school where she will be happy even if basketball doesn’t work out. She will receive some academic scholarships this fall and could work her way into a basketball scholarship. Travis said Whitworth College showed interest, but she wanted to leave Spokane.

“I didn’t want to go somewhere just to play a sport,” she said. “At least I’ll experience basketball, and if it doesn’t work out, I’ll still like going to school there.”

She is considering studying French and communications. She enjoys traveling.

Travis spent about three weeks in France last summer for a school-related trip.

LC basketball coach Jim Redmon has no doubt Travis will succeed in whatever she does.

“It’s funny, because when she started into high school, she was more fun-loving and not really focused on things she wanted to do,” Redmon said. “She has developed into an outstanding athlete and student.

“As I said … if I could have a person for my daughter to be like, it would be Sarah.”