Weber School Starts First Softball Team
David R. Cohen is the former Associate Editor of the Atlanta Jewish Times. He is originally from Marietta, GA and studied Journalism at the University of Tennessee.
Remy Zimmerman transferred to the Weber School from North Springs in the spring of 2013. As a freshman, she was eager to jump into everything her new school had to offer, including Weber’s wide variety of athletic programs.
But softball, the sport she had excelled in as a pitcher at the Epstein School and North Springs, wasn’t on the list.
Zimmerman wanted to start a team, but it wasn’t until a former teammate from North Springs, Meredith Galanti, transferred the next fall that the duo thought a softball team at Weber could become a reality.
“Remy and I have played together since we were 10 years old,” said Galanti, who plays catcher. “I came to Weber my sophomore year, and of course it was something that Remy and I talked about. At that point we had a pitcher and catcher; we just had to fill in the rest of the field.”
So Zimmerman and Galanti approached Weber Athletic Director David Moore in the fall of their sophomore year with the hope of rounding up a team. Moore was supportive and helped them organize a lunch meeting to gauge interest, but only about 10 girls attended.
“At the first meeting, people showed up, but there were only three of us really interested,” Zimmerman said. “It was hard getting people to come out who had played softball before.”
Despite that initial setback, Zimmerman and Galanti kept pushing for a chance to play softball at Weber. In their junior year, they rounded up enough girls committed to playing. From there, the group formed into a softball club and began the process of creating a team and looking for a coach.
For Moore, who said the Sandy Springs day school has never dropped a sport in his eight-year tenure, adding softball was about making sure the team would be a lasting addition to Weber.
“Starting the team was really a question of, is this something we can maintain?” Moore said. “We didn’t want it to only last for a year or two. Our goal was that this is a permanent addition to our program.”
Once the girls were together and the school was on board, Moore started looking for a coach and a place to play. Scott Seagraves, the school’s assistant baseball coach, was selected to lead the team, and his daughter, Jessica, transferred from Lassiter High School to play.
Weber math teacher Caroline Campbell joined the team as an assistant coach.
Weber’s baseball field was converted to accommodate softball with a portable fence in the outfield, a new backstop behind home plate and a shortened infield. The decision was made to play home games on campus so the team would feel more connected with the school.
The 12-member squad was 0-4 through four games of its Georgia Independent School Association schedule.
“No matter the scores of the games,” Zimmerman said, “most people are out here for the experience. Even if we haven’t been successful with the end results of each game, it’s definitely been a great learning experience.”
“Now that we have an established program,” Galanti said, “when kids are looking to come to Weber, they are going to see that this is an actual team, not just an idea.”
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