Coach Marie's love for softball started as young as five years old, but her true passion for the game came when she first put gear on behind the plate at eleven years old. It was at this age that she stepped into the world of competitive softball and never looked back. The gear became part of Coach and she never took it off.
Coach Marie's first home of competitive ball came when she joined the Willingboro Jemz. She played on this team for six years and won three consecutive NJ State Championships, two NJ Regional Championships, and went on to play at the 16U World Series in North Carolina, being the only team comprised of all black players out of two POC teams in the tournament. Due to her innate leadership skills, Coach was the captain of her team from 2009-2014 and has been awarded over 15 MVP awards.
For high school, Coach Marie attended Burlington County Institute of Technology -Westampton (BCIT-West). She was, again, captain for her 2013 and 2014 season. Coach had a very successful high school career with a peak batting average of .604 and slugging percentage of 1.209.
Coach's NCAA softball career started at Goldey-Beacom College in Wilmington, Delaware and transitioned to Saint Elizabeth University. There she was the SAAC softball representative, became a member of SEU's Chapter of Psi Chi, the International Honors Society of Psychology, and was awarded the 2018 Woman of the Year title, which resulted in being chosen to represent SEU as their Woman of the Year candidate for the New Jersey Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women at Seton Hall, NJ.
Upon graduation, Coach Marie couldn't walk away from the game. After her collegiate career, she had the opportunity to play in a softball league in Amsterdam, Netherlands while pursuing (and earning) her Master's Degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology. She was also part of a summer U24 league, SJCSL, operating out of Cinnaminson, NJ from 2018 to 2021. Today, Coach currently plays in multiple co-ed slow-pitch leagues, but still looks for any opportunity to play fast pitch.
Coach's love for the game has and will always remain unwavering. Years of playing has helped sculpt her into the athlete she is today and paved the way for her to become a premier catching instructor at Challenge U. Softball.
"My philosophy is "to always give yourself grace". Though my competitive nature propelled me to much success during my high school career, I didn't give myself the much needed grace. It is very important to me to not only stress the prioritization of one's mental health over their ambition, but also create and adopt a mentality and practice of "mentally liberating competitive softball". Coaches and players must always strive for an equal balance, which we find creates the BEST all-around softball players ever to play the game."- Coach Marie