Team in front of Olympic mascots

Our suite at Opening ceremonies

Me and The Bryan Brothers (Camarillo and Stanford connection)

Me and Misty May-Treanor (now a 2-time gold medalist!!)

Most of you know and have been following how we spend one half of our days : on the softball field. However, there is also another large part of our day that is spent hanging out in the village. It is like two different worlds … the field is where we compete and is familiar to what we have been doing for almost our entire lives, but the village is like walking into a dream world or something you would see in a movie. Thousands of athletes and coaches from every edge of the earth walking around, eating, trading pins, laughing. Boxers from Poland sparring each other right outside of your dorm. Long distance runners from Kenya and Tanzania zooming by you as you walk to the dining hall. It is so magical, especially for me because there is so much competitive energy and love for sport bottled up in one place, I just want to sit on a bench for hours and take it all in.

Part of the enjoyment of village life is interacting and rooting for all the other USA athletes. The other day I was in the training room next to a women’s volleyball player. She had brought in some McDonald’s and it smelled so good. She offered me an extra apple pie and I took her up on the offer and scarfed it down. I told her how I had been staying away from that side of the dining hall but had recently been dreaming of their apple pies (they fry them here instead of baking them like they do back home — yum!) so it was funny that she had offered hers to me. She said it was meant to happen and that if in return I could now start having dreams of their team beating China because that is their next big game coming up. I told her I would and sure enough, they beat China yesterday in a VERY close game that all of us athletes back here were watching together. A bunch of the athletes here knew the story of the “apple pie exchange” and starting giving ME high-fives for helping them out, too funny. It is like one big family, rooting on our brothers and sisters, helping each other out one apple pie at a time

Speaking of rooting and cheering, today we spent the morning watching USA’s 4X100 medley relay and saw Michael Phelps win his eight gold medal … it was if time had stopped in the village and everyone was in their rooms doing the same thing. On the last leg of the relay our whole team was yelling, cheering, sending every possible vibe we had to our team to win the gold, and when we did we, and the village, erupted with excitement. We then belted into a chant of “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!” It was beautiful. To watch history with all those around you share that same excitement and emotion. Pretty cool morning. Then I was off to lunch where I separated from our team to meet some new people. I decided to sit with the Swedish women’s handball team. This is a sport that our team has joked about playing in 2012 instead of softball. It looks so interesting and physical, and as it turns out (according to the Swedes) the US doesn’t have a team. Perfect! So the Swedish women were teaching me the basics of the sport and even offered to have our team train with them, as long as they could all come visit it us in “beautiful California”!

This is one of the highlights of village life for me: eating with athletes from all over the world. The other day, Lauren Lappin and I had breakfast with two track athletes from Pakistan. I told them about my trip to Afghanistan (which is a bordering country) earlier this year and how beautiful the K2 mountain range is. They told me about some of the beautiful places in Pakistan and I told them I would love to visit there one day. When they asked us where we were from, they were shocked to hear we were American because they never thought Americans would want to visit them. They also said they had always dreamed of seeing the beached in California, and I told them that is where I live and they should come for a visit too! They laughed at that, but I smiled and I think there was a mutual understanding that there will be a day when we can visit each other and not have to worry about anything. When you are sitting over eggs and cereal in a dining hall at the Olympics, just about anything seems possible …

Stanford Shot of Lauren Lappin, Ogonna Nnamani (USA Volleyball and Stanford Alum) and me at Opening Ceremonies.

Team and coaches all dressed up before Opening Ceremonies.

Team pic with the President after he got pranked at practice.

Team pic with the President at Opening Ceremonies.

August 14, 2008

Well, there are many things one can predict for the Olympics, but to be honest, I never predicted we would get so much rain that our game would be cancelled and postponed to the next day. We were down by one run and had the top of our order up to bat; Natasha Watley had a full count and you could just FEEL she was going to get on base and we were mounting a comeback. But then … rain. In fact, I am back at the village hanging out in the athlete lounge right now and it is still coming down outside. Oh well. We definitely kept ourselves entertained in the locker room while we waited it out. We played a card game called “Spoons” but instead of spoons (we had none) we had to use these random tubes of mystery meat they gave us to snack on (we had no idea what was in them, but there was a picture of lion on the wrapper, ha! I don’t think anyone ate any …). Basically how the game works is that there are only enough “spoons” for everyone playing minus one, so one person is eliminated each round. So take a competitive group of 15 women who are in the middle of a very competitive game of softball already and are now using all that energy to play this game. You can imagine how crazy and loud it got when we all had to dive in for our mystery meat tubes, wrestling each other and grabbing for these gushy tubes to stay in the game. Lauren Lappin and Caitlin Lowe ended up ripping one in half and we had flying meat all over the place. Needless to say, it kept us occupied with laughter and good fun.

Tomorrow is going to be exciting. We play Japan at noon (who is one of our toughest opponents) and then go back to where we left off in the top of the 4th against Canada. Big day for us — it is just so hard to think about tomorrow when we are all so fired up to play today! So pray for clear skies and USA to come out with two more wins!!

Jessica Mendoza #2

I have been waiting four years to finally play in the Olympic games again and the time is finally here! We have played two games, one against Venezuela and today against Australia. Today was a close game and our first challenge, so it was exciting to see our team respond the way we did. The adrenaline was flowing and the excitement was definitely strong as we pulled off the win!! We play every day until the 19th and I know these days are just going to fly by, but we have been trying to take advantage of the small amounts of free time we have. Every night we have a team meeting and a part of that meeting two players are chosen to “present”. In that presentation we are supposed to choose an animal that best represents our team against the competition we are facing the next day. The chosen two start off by doing charades so everyone (players vs. staff) can try and guess the animal that is going to be presented. The first night it was Finch and Tairia, and they chose an American Eagle because of how it represents our country. Their charade was Finch using her enormous wing span to sweep across the room and land on Tairia (who was the prey) … very funny stuff. Last night the chosen two were myself and Vicky Galindo. We chose to do killer whales, and our charade was Vicky running around the room trying to kill me (for first word) and then we both pretended to breach the ocean to get them to guess whale. Even more humorous as I am sure most of you can imagine … Oh, and the players are beating the staff 2-0 by the way. The reasons we chose the killer whale were because of how they travel in pods (averaging about 15 per pod, just like our team) and how they pride themselves on communicating to both help each other out and to attack their prey, which is one of our biggest strengths. Vicky drew a picture of some killer whales traveling together through the ocean with the words Fierce, Fast and Family written above them. Tairia had drawn a picture of an American Eagle and Coach Candrea taped both pictures up in our dugout for our games. Just some interesting fun stuff on what is going on behind the scenes

We also made a trip out to Nike yesterday where we got to meet up with family (instead of from behind a fence after the game) get some really fun free gear and have some amazing food — they have a chef they brought in from Italy that makes homeade Italian every day … yum! Speaking of dinners, for tonight’s dinner we actually had Mexican food in China! There is a training center we (US athletes) can sneak off to that imports food from the US, and they had Mexican tonight. We love eating at the Olympic village with all of the athletes and all the different types of food, but something like Mexican food is unheard of here in the village so today was a welcomed treat by our whole team (especially me!!).

Well we still have a long road ahead of us, and I am sure much more excitement to come. I hope you are all watching at home and cheering loud enough so we can hear you thousands of miles away here in China!!
GO USA!!

Hey Everyone!!!

We are here in Beijing at the Olympic Village and have had much to tell the few days we have been here. We have already had a few practices and are getting familiarized with this gigantic village with so many things to do and people to meet! But the highlights thus far have come in the last 24 hours. Last night I was able to attend my very first opening ceremonies and it did not disappoint!! First of all, our team looked so good all dressed up in our Ralph Lauren blazer and khaki’s, topped off with a cute newsboy cap! As we waited our turn to march through the tunnel into the stadium, we mingled with athletes from other countries and met many from our own as well. The anticipation grew strong however as soon as we neared the end of the tunnel. All of a sudden, our whole US delegation of athletes and coaches began chanting “USA! USA!” and you could feel the pride pumping through the goose bumps that had risen on my arms. As we got to the entrance of the stadium we heard over the loud speaker, “United States of America” and 90,000 fans greeted us. What a feeling. I have experienced the pride of being an Olympian, but to experience it with all those who are representing our country by your side, was a whole other level of excitement. Once inside, the best part was the lighting of the torch … retired gymnast Li Ning ran across the top of the stadium while being suspended in the air, following him were the faces of all those who had run with the torch from all over the world. It was absolutely spectacular … with a giant ignition of fire to light the enormous torch at the top of the stadium. The whole night was so stimulating we thought it was going to be hard to get up for practice today.

That is until an entourage of cars showed up at practice and President Bush came out ready to play. He watched us hit, tried out some gloves, even asked me where I learned to hit. But the highlight of the day was when out very own Laura Berg pranked the president. Now as many of you know, Bergie is THE prankster and is always up to something with a teammate or coach. However, she went above and beyond any prank she has ever done when President Bush said hello; she shook his hand, said “Hi there Mr. President” and gave him a good hard slap on the back. What she had done was caked her hand full of chalk and left a perfect five-fingered hand print on the back of his shirt. Now of course, there is a million members of the media taking pictures and video and just snapping away at the president with a hand print across his back. We finally had to tell him because everyone was laughing and really, you can only prank the president for so long right? The highlight of his visit then came when we did our traditional (what we do for every game and practice, from the movie Miracle) “Who do you play for?”. President Bush took the place of Coach Candrea in the huddle threw his hand out with all of ours piled on top and shouted “Who do you play for?” where we loudly responded with “USA!!” Hard to get much more patriotic then that. Pretty cool stuff in the last 24 hours … and the real excitement has not even arrived yet!! This is why I love the Olympics!!! Can not wait to update you all more on what is still yet to come!!! TWO MORE DAYS!!

Go USA!
Jessica

Check out this article on Jessica Mendoza from USA Today! Click the link below to read on!

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/beijing/team/2008-07-30-softball-mendoza_N.htm
Article copyright 2008 USA Today.

1. What I watch on TV
CNN, HBO, Discovery channel

2. What music I listen to
Norah Jones, Fleetwood Mac, Ani DiFranco, Jack Johnson; favorite song: Dear Mr. President by Pink

3. What I drive
Silver 2002 Nissan Pathfinder I got when I graduated from Stanford

4. Favorite movie
Wizard of Oz, Miracle, V for Vendetta

5. What I’m reading
Life of Pi by Yann Martel

6. Magazines I subscribe to
Time

8. Superstitions
Have to hit the wrapper off of a brand new bat before I can use it in a game. This can take awhile and my coach’s never understand it, but I have been doing it since I was 12

9. Worst habit
Procrastination

10. On my office walls
Don’t have an office, but I would probably have a big picture of my husband Adam’s beautiful smile, lots of photos of my fam and a big picture of a beautiful place I’d rather be out in nature (like New Zealand)

11. The one person I’d love to trade places with for a day
Bono from U2 so I could live the life of a rock star but make an impact on our world at the same time

12. My first job
Started a “babysitter’s club” in sixth grade with two of my friends. We also did some free-lance car washing and vacuuming (our parents of course). Can not remember what we charged, but all proceeds went to a trip to Disneyland for the three of us (didn’t have much of a retirement plan back then).

13. My favorite meal
Christmas morning breakfast. My dad makes his once-a-year “mexican gulosh” that consists of chorizo, eggs, beans, hot dogs, onions, cheese and anything else he thinks of to throw in.

14. Talent I’d most like to have
Play a mean acoustic guitar with a melodic voice to go with it

15. My favorite athlete, coach or owner to watch in another sport
Pat Summit of the Tennessee Lady Vols and Julie Foudy of women’s soccer

16. My dream date
My husband Adam Burks (he’s the hottest date around!) and I doing a humanitarian act to help children — could be anywhere as long as we are able to do it together

17. Favorite city to visit
San Gimignano, Italy

18. Favorite sports team growing up
LA Dodgers

19. My greatest love
Humanity

20. My favorite physical attribute
Smile

21. My least favorite physical attribute
Scarred legs (but I earned them doing what I love!)

22. Favorite value in others
Selflessness

23. My hero
My father Gil Mendoza

24. My bucket list (things you’d like to do while you’re still on this Earth)
Have children
Travel to Thailand, Argentina, Egypt, Ireland, Spain
Give more impoverished children that lack opportunity a reason to smile
Get softball back in the Olympics

25. My motto
Love it, Dream it, Live it! and Powered by Passion … Motivated by Moments … Fueled by Family

46 tour stops, 45 cities. I am now on the last 7 hour bus ride we will take this tour, and although it is long and we can not wait to get to our destination in Salem, Virginia, I am sad that this is the beginning of so many “lasts”. In two days it will be our last domestic plane flight as a team, our last tour stop, and yes, for possibly all of us, our last Olympic games. These last seven months have been the most interesting and special months we could share as a team. I could start with the “Kangaroo Court” that we use to fine each other for the most random and silly things. For example, Andrea Duran was fined for slipping at home plate at UCLA after hitting a home run, Coach Candrea was even fined for falling in the third base coaching box trying to get out of the way of a mis-thrown ball. I was most recently fined for throwing a ball at practice that was supposed to be off to the side, but instead took out someone who was just there to watch practice. Even Stacey Nuveman’s baby, Chase, was fined for needing excessive diaper-changing on the back of our bus that stunk it up for days in Yellowstone!

Then there are the late nights of traveling where we are all so delirious and gitty, we tell stories and jokes that would normally never make any sense, but instead it makes us laugh so hard we cry. This leads into the next day early mornings where we are afraid to even smile at a teammate because everyone is so grumpy and sleep-deprived they might take your head off. But really, when I look back on this long and memorable tour, there is one memory that stands apart from the rest, and that is the fans. As we take the field in the last US stop before heading to Beijing, there is a part of me that wants to jump over the fence and hug every young girl, boy, parent or coach who has come to watch and support us that day. There are the usual shouts of “Bring home the gold!” and “Do us proud!”, but what I am going to take with me to Beijing are the impressionable smiles of the youth that we have played in front of, signed a picture for, given a high-five to, and maybe even made an impact on … without realizing how much they have made an impact on us.
We head to Beijing in just over a week to not only bring home the gold, do our nation proud, and celebrate the beauty of a sport we play, but to represent the dreams and smiles of all those we have met in 56 cities scattered across the country … those who are most important … the future. We all know softball should remain an Olympic sport, now it is time to show the world why we play it. We represent so much more than ourselves when we take the field in Beijing, and our impactful aim is now directed to more than the minds of the youth we see every day on tour, it is now to those who have the opportunity to make a difference … by a single vote. When it is all said and done, we will say our final goodbye to this tour, but we cannot let the future say goodbye to the sport.

Team photo at Lake Yellowstone.Me enjoying the beauty of Lake Yellowstone.

Team USA posing in front of Old Faithful.