1) Unedited original version
Abby Wood is one of the easiest people to spot at Eastern. On the softball field she is helping direct traffic behind the plate as the catcher. In the dugout she is the one yelling out the chants at the top of her lungs. At the other sports at Eastern, you can almost always catch her in the stands cheering on her fellow athletes.
That is who she is, personable and outgoing; she makes her presence known wherever she goes.
“I am always an upbeat person,” Wood said. “I would rather be happy then sad, like most people I think. I always like to have fun and I try to avoid any depressing scenarios. I always try to bring the life to the party I guess. I try to make sure everyone is having a good time and having fun.”
While she doesn’t mind getting down and dirty on the field, she still likes to be an average girl off the field. One of her greatest passions is doing hair and nails on herself and other girls, especially her teammates.
She joked that while the softball team had nice nails to start the season off they haven’t been able to keep it up since the season has gotten into full swing.
She loves doing people’s nails and hair, but she finds other joys than just helping make her and others look good.
“This might sound bad, but you get a lot of gossip,” Wood said. “People tell you a lot of stuff. It is just you and them. You have a long time doing their hair and people just open up to you, and I am a people person, so I like to talk about a lot of things.”
She is also thinking that this one time high school activity could one day possibly turn into a career.
“Over the years through high school I got stuck doing everyone’s hair for prom and doing their nails,” Wood said. “I just started to like it. I am going here for nursing but after I get all my nursing done I am going to go for a cosmetology degree. It is just something for fun I guess.”
Wood is one of those players that can sneak up on someone and her opponents shouldn’t let her sunny disposition fool them. She is a fierce competitor and can get it done at bat.
She is batting .225 with two home runs and seven runs batted in along with nine runs scored. One of the more interesting stats is she leads the team in hit by pitches with three.
It didn’t start off that great for Wood when she first got here.
“In the beginning of the season I was in a big hitting slump,” Wood said. “I lost confidence I guess. I came to college and I was so nervous, as any freshman would be. I wasn’t seeing the ball at all. Coach and I were working on it and I started to see the ball better and got more hits. I got more confidence.
“When I hit that home run, I told my parents after the game, I didn’t even remember what I did. Maybe I just didn’t think about it and just let my mechanics take over and stuff. It felt good.”
It may have taken her bat a little while to wake up but it didn’t take her that long to decide to come to Eastern.
“I just loved this place,” Wood said. “Everyone I met was so nice to me and there was never a mean face to walk into. All the athletes were welcoming and everything and so was everyone on campus. I walked out from my visit and I sat down in the van with my parents and I said to them, ‘This is where I want to go.’ I went back in and told coach I am coming here. It is very homey here.
“My parents always said, ‘Abby, with your personality you can go to a school with 40,000 and be fine, but I think you will do better here because you like to know people on a personal level.’”
Wood loves to meet new people, but the most important people to her are her family and friends. She said her family will always back her 110% in anything she does, but they are not her only family according to her.
“My softball team is my family,” Wood said. “Coming here and being far away from my family, I can’t go home a lot like some people here can. Being on a team that is so welcoming and everything, I have never been on a team that has had no problems. I came to Eastern and it was like everyone wanted to be your best friend. They are always trying to be there for you. They are my family away from home. I haven’t been home sick much because of them.”
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2) The edited version put on the DEN
On the softball field, she is helping direct traffic behind the plate as the catcher. In the dugout, she is the one yelling out the chants at the top of her lungs. At Eastern sporting events, you can almost always catch her in the stands cheering on her fellow athletes.
That is freshman catcher Abby Wood – personable and outgoing, and she makes her presence known wherever she goes.
“I am always an upbeat person,” Wood said. “I always like to have fun and … try to bring the life to the party I guess.”
While she doesn’t mind getting down and dirty on the field, she still likes to be an average woman off the field by doing friends’ and teammates’ hair and nails for them.
With Wood doing nails, she said the softball team had nice nails to start the season but has not been able to keep it up.
She has picked up another pastime as a result of her passion for nails and hair – gossip.
“You get a lot of gossip,” Wood said. “People tell you a lot of stuff. You have a long time doing their hair and people just open up to you.”
Wood said she thinks her high school activity, doing nails and hair, could one day possibly turn into a career.
“Through high school I got stuck doing everyone’s hair for prom and doing their nails,” Wood said. “I just started to like it.”
Even though Wood is studying nursing at Eastern, she plans on pursuing a cosmetology degree after she earns a nursing degree.
Along with her knack for cosmetology, Wood is one of those athletes who can sneak up on her opponents.
She said they should not let her sunny disposition fool them because she said she is a fierce competitor and can get it done at bat.
This season, Wood is batting .225 with two home runs and seven RBIs, along with nine runs scored. Also, she leads the Panthers in being hit by pitches, having been plunked three times.
Once she arrived on campus, things didn’t go so well for the Shelbyville, Ind., native.
To start the season, Wood was immediately stuck in a hitting slump as she said she was not seeing the ball at all.
However, once she and head coach Kim Schuette began working on seeing it better, Wood’s confidence soared.
Then, on March 27 against Tennessee Tech at Williams Field, Wood hit her first collegiate home run.
“When I hit that home run, I told my parents after the game that I didn’t even remember what I did,” Wood said. “It felt good.”
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