Southern Indiana Living - March / April 2024

Pitching Hope
People of Southern Indiana
Softball Player’s Inspiring Story Makes It to the Big Screen
Story by Michele Hardman
Photos submitted by Katelyn Pavey Rockwood
When Katelyn Pavey was
born twenty-five years
ago, her life was off to
a rocky start from the
very beginning. Her birth was unexpected
- the result of an affair.
When she was born, her left arm
wasn’t fully developed. For many
years, her parents struggled with
the thought that their daughter had
been born this way because of their
own personal mistakes. From the
time she was an infant, Katelyn had
no choice but to learn to adapt her
everyday life to work around her
physical limitations. But since this
was all she had known from birth,
she didn’t think that much about it.
Her dad, Eric, played baseball
in his younger years and introduced
Katelyn to softball. She almost
immediately fell in love with
it. Why? “It made me feel confident
in myself,” she said. “Like I wasn’t
that different than anybody else.”
Eric coached this sport for 27 years,
and he and Katelyn spent countless
hours in their backyard practicing
and playing, helping her to hone
her skills.
At the age of 10, she decided
she wanted to play softball at the
college level. She had her work
cut out for her, but she had an unmatched
determination.
Katelyn said, “Lots of mornings
I’d wake up at 5 a.m. — even
in the freezing cold of winter — and
go outside to hit. I sacrificed birthday
parties, time with my friends, a
LOT of weekends … a lot of time in
general … to get to where I wanted
to be in this sport.”
And it paid off. She was able to
get on a good travel team, was getting
to start the games, and thought
she was doing well, but one day she
was asked to leave the team. The
coach told her that it was causing
too much drama from other players,
coaches and parents, who were
complaining that a girl with only
one arm was starting the games instead
of other girls with both fully
functioning arms. Even though this
hurt her deeply at first, she chose
to use the initial sting of it to act as
fuel to drive her even more to prove
that she WAS good enough at the
game and deserved to be out on the
field. She eventually rose above all
of the opposition and became the
first one-armed All-American softball
player.
She and her family attend First
Capital Christian Church in Corydon,
with Pastor Tyler Sansom. Ever
since he was a little boy, Tyler had
wanted to make movies. Since the
church’s motto is “to help others
find and follow Jesus,” he figured
what better way to do this than
Southern Indiana Living • Mar/Apr 2024 • 15