Olympic bronze medallist Jennifer Salling hangs up her number seven jersey but grabs a clipboard in lieu.
In the quaint little city of Port Coquitlam, B.C, a small girl could be seen huddled inside a hockey net, heels up, waiting for the next move to be made. Her older brother and his friends warned that they were not going easy on her because she was a girl, but that didn’t matter as she was more athletically gifted than they ever would be.
Team Canada’s Women’s National Softball Player and Olympic bronze medallist Jennifer Salling was that girl.
Salling has had an impeccable 29-year-long career, from winning bronze at the Olympics to earning three silver medals and one gold at various Pan American Games.
However, her accomplishments on the field cannot be accurately reflected without acknowledging the amount of dedication and challenges Salling had to face to get to this point in her long-standing career.
Throughout Salling’s childhood, she was always trying to learn and conquer new activities.
“She was like a sponge. She always followed me and my friends around when we were playing sports, and she just wanted to soak up as much as she could really,” said Salling’s brother Scott.
By kindergarten, Salling showed remarkable skill in various sports for her age bracket.
“She was beating my buddies who were like three and four years older than her. You could definitely tell she had more skill than a lot of kids,” said Scott.
It was almost inevitable that Salling would be good at any sport she tried her hand in. The Salling family was a family filled with athletes. Her father was a professional softball catcher for the men’s fastpitch league in B.C., and her brother Scott was a football star at the University of British Columbia.
“I honestly just grew up around sports. I was a multi-sport athlete playing basketball, volleyball, and soccer. I played soccer at a very high level in addition to softball,” said Salling. “But for whatever reason, I just authentically felt and chose softball to be my long-term sport.”
Softball Career Begins
Salling began playing softball at the tender age of five, first playing in her community house league division. Not long into the season, it was clear that she possessed a raw talent that other kids lacked. Coaches, parents, and spectators would approach her parents saying, “You need to put Jenn in rep ball.”
At Gates Park, formally known as Reeves Park, Salling tried out for her first competitive team, the Port Coquitlam Ravens. After her try out it was evident that Salling belonged on the diamond competitively.
Salling would play with the Ravens organization for most of her rookie years without considering the sport a possible career.
That was until the University of Oregon drafted her at the Canada Cup, “I think once I was recruited, I really started to be like, wow, where can this sport take me?” said Salling.
She would then join Canada’s Women’s National Softball Team in 2006, making her international debut.
“The first time when I watched her put on a Team Canada jersey, that was a pretty emotional time for our family just seeing her there, and she didn’t look out of place,” said Scott.
In 2008 Salling made her first Olympic appearance at the Beijing Summer Olympic Games for Team Canada as one of the youngest players on the roster.
“Everything moved very quickly. I was very young. I was very inexperienced, but also I played a very significant role from a softball standpoint for the team,” said Salling.
Despite Team Canada giving it their all, the team was unable to secure a medal. The aftermath of the Olympics was a strange time for Salling. She searched to feel that high of playing on a world stage, but with fastpitch being removed from the games it was unknown if that would ever happen again. What would she do next, and how could she navigate through the world of fastpitch?
Salling would go on to play three more years of college softball until being drafted to The Florida Pride, a team in the National Pro Fastpitch [NPF] league. She would play for the Pride for four years in addition to being on Canada’s National Team. However, despite her best efforts, she was unable to be an active member of both teams, leaving Team Canada during her time with The Pride. Eventually, she was traded in 2014 to The Pennsylvania Rebellion.
The Journey of Self Reflection
After being traded to The Rebellion her passion for the sport was not enough to sustain herself financially. Like many women before her, Salling had to make the difficult decision to leave the sport she loved in order to make a living.
“I kind of lost a little bit of my fuel to the fire to compete,” said Salling. “Because if you weren’t on The Pride at that time, you weren’t really making a living playing the sport of softball.”
As a part of her journey of self-reflection, Salling returned to school in 2015 at the University of Washington for a master’s degree in education.
Throughout her time at grad school, Salling’s inner thoughts began trickling in, including whether or not she should continue to play or pursue a coaching career. Despite playing college softball and being in the pro league, the once roaring blaze was now reduced to a few embers waiting in anticipation for something to stoke the flames.
She came to the conclusion she was not done with her playing career, however, Salling believed that the burnt-out fire could not be relit without going back to her roots.
“I felt that if I was back on the National Team and earned a spot again, I would be able to tap into that fire. Because when you’re playing for your country, you’re playing for something bigger than yourself,” said Salling.
Salling emailed her former coach Mark Smith for Team Canada and asked if she would be able to try out for the team, to which, of course, he agreed.
“Jenn is very athletic and was very naturally gifted; she had an extremely strong throwing arm, probably the strongest throwing arm I’ve ever seen a female athlete have. And so she was just impressive to watch,” said Smith.
Salling, without a doubt, made the team. And that fire within her began to flicker once again.
The Road to Redemption
After the 2016 London Summer Olympic Games wrapped an announcement was made that softball would be reinstated into the 2020 Olympics.
“I had to like really sit down, think about, wow, is it something that I really want to do? Reflecting on 2008, knowing what it takes, do I really want to try to pursue another Olympic Games?” said Salling.
With retirement lingering in the back of Salling’s mind, she decided if she were going to attend the 2020 Olympics, she would do whatever it took to come home with a medal this time around.
“The level of commitment she made to her physical conditioning, technical skills, and her hitting specifically stands out in my mind as just absolutely exemplary,” said Smith.
From always playing alongside older girls to now being one of the senior members on the team, it was almost a seamless transition. Salling began teaching and training her fellow rookie teammates that would later succeed her after the Olympics.
“Here’s a player who’s literally mentoring someone to take their job, and yet she did it so selflessly,” said Coach Smith.
After a year-long hiatus due to the pandemic, the Olympic games were back on! Finally, with over five years of preparation to get to this moment, Salling was ready to win gold.
The seats were empty, with no one to cheer the team on. The silence was almost more deafening than the normal jeers from the crowd. The 2020 Olympic games were not the return that Salling had envisioned, but she was going to give it her all. But in an extra-inning against Japan, the crack of the bat buzzed through Salling’s ears. With one swift run reaching the plate, her dream of winning an Olympic gold medal was brutally crushed.
Although her heart ached, Salling would still go on to make Canadian history.
The Salling family gathered in their childhood home sitting on the couch with their eyes glued to the television. Tears, laughter and memories flooded in one last time as they watched their daughter and sister win bronze at what would be her last professional game ever.
Onto The Next Chapter
Although Salling’s playing career had come to a bittersweet end, her passion for education and learning, as well as her “huge heart,” will undoubtedly transfer into her new role as one of Team Canada’s coaching assistants.
“When people ask me, what’s your dream job, being an assistant coach for Softball Canada is the dream job for me,” said Salling.
