You can probably spot this week’s Campus Celeb, Molly O’Brien, lugging around her softball gear from class to class every day. Molly is a junior on Case’s women’s softball team and is majoring in biology, pre-PA with a minor in sociology. She is very dedicated to her team, practicing for 3 or more hours at 6 days a week. Her love of softball started when she began playing T-ball in pre-school, and then went on to playing in her park district’s team in the 4th grade. For the first 10 years of Molly’s softball career, her dad coached her on their driveway in her hometown of Northbrook, IL. Years later, after her high school team won the state championship during her sophomore year, she realized she wanted to play in college. This decision led her to switch to a more competitive travel team in order to prepare -and she caught Case’s attention as a player on said team.
Molly loves playing for Case because they’ve become a highly competitive team, but they always love to have a great time by being goofballs and playing pranks on each other. Molly’s favorite part of playing for Case is when the team goes to Florida for spring break. This year, she’s looking forward to staying in a candy decorated house with an ice cream shaped pool and different candy themed bedrooms. Besides the sweet looking house, she’s also looking forward to playing in the spring break conference games. Since softball is a big part of Molly’s life, her cherished memories lie in the heart of her team. One of her favorite memories was watching her team win the conference game her freshman year against the nationally ranked Washington University team, and this was after the Case softball team had gone four years without a conference game win. That same day she got a horrible sunburn that was blistered for several days, strangely making the victory even more memorable.
Besides hitting homeruns in her sleep, Molly loves to chill and watch some of her favorite TV shows like Pretty Little Liars, Survivor, and a family favorite: Dancing With the Stars. Nicholas Sparks is one of her favorite authors and romantic comedies are her go-to movies. While she spends hours looking through wedding Pinterest boards, she is a great, supportive sister of Delta Gamma. She’s checked out many sporting events at the Q and has supported the Indians at Progressive Field. In the future she would like to explore the nightlife of Cleveland’s restaurants and bars with her friends and family.