Dani Woods and Childhood Friends Play Collegiate Athletics
4/8/2007 12:00:00 AM | Softball
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. ?? Alabama softball junior Dani Woods has joined a group of her childhood friends amidst the ranks of college athletes. The small group from the Baltimore, Md. area has achieved athletic success in different areas of the country.
Woods, a native of Cockeysville, Md., grew up in the suburbs of Baltimore near the Inner Harbor. She had several friends in the neighborhood who were either the same age or a year or two apart. They lived in a small neighborhood and would spend as much time as they could with each other.
"I grew up in a little neighborhood and had a bunch of neighborhood friends," said Woods. "We were always outside playing. We did everything together. It was a group of kids, six of us. We basically went to school together and grew up together."
The group consisted of Dani and her younger sister, Brittany, Wes Donehower, Becky Lillemoe, Jaime Hanssen and Kurisha Hoffman. They would spend countless hours outside playing a variety of different games.
"We used to play kickball, capture the flag, kick the can, cops and robbers, 50 and hide-and-go-seek," said Dani. "We used to play everything. Sometimes we would play wiffle ball with my dad and would all go to Friendly's after. We would catch lightning bugs in the summer. We lived in a cul-de-sac which was a semi-circle of seven houses. We would all meet in this one place by a big rock. We played outside until we were called in for dinner."
They would do other things besides playing games in the neighborhood. They used to go out on the Chesapeake Bay with their families, go to the beach in Ocean City and go to an annual week-long fair held in August. They also used to go to watch the Baltimore Orioles play at Camden Yards.
"My dad (Terry Woods) used to be a PSL owner and we would go to a bunch of the games," said Woods. "We used to go to the Camden Club. Our team went to maybe 20 games a season. It was a lot of fun. He used to take the team and we would go with all of our friends. I grew up watching Cal Ripken, Brady Anderson and Roberto Alomar."
Once Dani and her friends started high school they began to spread apart. Baltimore has a lot of private high schools and the group would end up going to different ones to play sports.
"We each went our separate ways with school," said Dani. "
My sister and I always seemed like we had the same friends, did the same things and played the same sports. We went to school together. In Baltimore there are about 12 different private schools and two public schools. In the private schools, sports are really competitive, especially lacrosse. We all went certain places to play. Three of us went to the same high school and the others went elsewhere."
Dani ended up going to Dulaney High School to play softball. She had grown up playing both softball and tennis. She started playing softball at the age of six and played slow pitch until she was 13, but her parents, Terry and Susan Woods, both played tennis in college and taught the sport to their two daughters.
"We were raised to play tennis," said Dani. "We played a lot of tennis and softball. We went down to Virginia and I started playing fast pitch when I was 13. From there on out I decided that softball was what I wanted to concentrate on."
When she was young, Dani played tennis a lot. She played competitively in inner-club tournaments. She also did clinics with her parents.
"I was competitive in tennis for awhile," said Woods. "I played all summer. I was always on the tennis court. I didn't play tennis in high school because it was in the spring. I played softball instead."
Although most children in the Baltimore area play lacrosse, Dani never really could get into it. She played lacrosse for one year when she was little, but that was all she could handle.
"Maryland is born and bread lacrosse," said Woods. "From the time you come home from the hospital you have a lacrosse stick in your hand. I played one year of coach lacrosse, which is like a controlled scrimmage with the coaches. I hated it so I never played again. All of my friends played but it wasn't for me."
With lacrosse and field hockey being the two primary sports in Maryland, it was difficult to get good competition in high school for softball. Dani would end up receiving national recognition for what she was able to do in summer ball.
"Even high school was slow pitch up until a certain point," said Woods. "It seems like when you ask somebody from Texas what lacrosse is that is what it is like when you ask somebody in Maryland about softball. When I played summer ball, I didn't play in Maryland, I played down in Virginia Beach. It was two or three hours from home."
Her success in summer ball landed her a spot on the nationally ranked University of Alabama softball squad. Woods had several opportunities coming out of high school, including Tennessee, Arizona State and Virginia Tech, but it was the constant contact from the Tide coaching staff that lured Woods to the South.
"Alabama was very personable and I heard from the coaches probably every week," said Woods. "When I could start talking to them they called all the time. They were involved in my life outside of softball as well. I took a couple of other visits and came here last. I loved everything about it. I loved the school, the campus and all of the girls. You couldn't ask for any more than that."
While Dani signed with Alabama, her childhood friends had also done well in high school and were moving on to play in college.
Donehower went to the University of Pennsylvania to play baseball. He played one season before deciding to play on the club team at Penn. Lillemoe and Hanssen both went to the University of North Carolina to play lacrosse. Lillemoe was a midfielder and was named to the ACC Academic Honor Roll. Hanssen, now a junior defender for the Tar Heels, has been a two-year starter and was also named to the ACC Academic Honor Roll. Hoffman stayed in Maryland at Salisbury University to play softball and is a starting outfielder, who has hit over .300 in her first two seasons and is currently batting over .400 in her junior season.
The only member of the group of six friends who did not go to college to play a sport was Dani's sister, Brittany. She had several opportunities to play softball collegiately, but opted to join her older sister and enroll at the University of Alabama.
"We had always talked about going to college together," said Dani. "Even when we were little we have always had a special relationship. She applied just to apply and was accepted. I told her it was a lot of fun here and that I really wanted her to come. She didn't think twice about it. She loves it."
Dani is just over a year older than her sister, who is a sophomore at UA. The two live together in Tuscaloosa and Dani says they are still the best of friends.
"We do anything and everything together," said Dani. "We take vacations together. We eat together and always played the same sports, soccer, basketball and softball. We have always been close and never had any problems. Probably high school was when we started to spend a lot more time together."
One of the things the Woods sisters enjoy doing in their free time is playing tennis together. Although Dani said her tennis swing is not good for her softball swing, she says she still tries to play whenever she can.
"It is something I love to do so I am not going to stop doing it," said Woods. "We don't play as much here as we did at home because it is not very good for softball. We play a lot over break. I played probably every day if not twice a day during the summer. We play whenever we get a chance."
The matches become competitive between the two sisters, but neither one has a clear cut advantage.
"It is split," said Dani. "My sister is a good tennis player. When we were younger, we used to play in inter-club tournaments and it seemed like it always came down to between Britt and I in the finals. She won a couple of times. She was a legit player."
Dani still keeps in touch with her childhood friends on a weekly basis. She usually sees them in the summer but with all of them in college it becomes harder and harder to spend time together. For Dani it helps that she at least has her sister close by, something that she is hoping to continue in the future.
"You never know what the future brings, but I think we are planning on staying in the same area," said Dani. "I would want that and I am sure she would want that too. We have a good relationship."
Woods and the Crimson Tide will be back in action Wednesday when they host a doubleheader against Tennessee-Chattanooga beginning at 4 p.m.
