Editor’s note: Interesting story about Dallas Escobedo, member of the USA Junior Women’s team, playing for former Guanella Brothers pitching legend, Chuck D’Arcy at Arizona State. Seems to me that the State of Arizona turned out another another top flite college pitcher just up the road in Tuscon.
D’Arcy was a member of the USA Men’s gold medal winning team at the 1980 ISF World Championships, and starred for many years with one of the top teams in the men’s game, the Guanella Brothers Floormen.
Expectations high as Dallas Escobedo begins ASU softball career
From The Arizona Republic
Dallas Escobedo has yet to pitch a game for Arizona State softball, but she couldn’t be happier to already have a loss – when it comes to personnel decisions.
Escobedo admits she voted against hiring Chuck D’Arcy as ASU pitching coach despite credentials that include a four-year stint with the U.S. National team through a silver medal performance at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
“He had this whole big DA (district attorney) persona,” Escobedo said of D’Arcy, a prosecutor in Sacramento for 28 years. “I haven’t been more intimidated in my life than in that interview process with him. We laugh about it now because I’m very thankful he’s the coach.”
Expectations are high that Escobedo, under the tutelage of D’Arcy and sixth-year head coach Clint Myers, ultimately will lead ASU to a national championship. How’s that for pressure on a player fresh out of Phoenix St. Mary’s High School? Particularly since ASU has just one NCAA softball title (2008)and plays up the road from a rival with eight national crowns and in a conference with 23 national championships since 1982.
“We have an outstanding talented group of ladies who’ve worked really hard to accomplish what they’ve set in mind to do – get to Oklahoma City and compete for that national championship,” Myers said. “They also know it takes a lot more than saying what we want to do. It’s about the ability to put forth that championship effort.”
ASU lost in a super regional at Florida last season, ending a string of four straight Women’s College World Series appearances. Eight seniors and other key players return from a 44-17 team that adds Escobedo, touted by Sports Illustrated as a star of the future even before she went 3-0 for the U.S. Junior National team with 23 strikeouts in 18 innings at the 2010 Pan American Championships. She had five perfect games, 37 no-hitters and fanned 1,882 in high school.
None of which puts the 6-1 right-hander in a place where she isn’t open to learning from D’Arcy – in the National Softball Hall of Fame for his 30-year softball pitching career – or older teammates including returning pitcher Hillary Bach, 56-19 in two seasons at ASU.
Already Escobedo has shelved the screwball, one of her favorite pitches, and added a legitimate change-up to her repertoire (rise, drop, curve, fastball). D’Arcy, who worked with Monica Abbott, Cat Osterman and Jennie Finch on the 2008 Olympic team, prefers pitches with up or down movement. He’s helped Escobedo with her grips and to develop a stoic demeanor on the mound that’s counter to her friendly, outgoing personality.
“He doesn’t want to know if we’re winning 10-0 or losing 10-0,” Escobedo said. “You show no emotion. You want to be like the dog at dog park they don’t want to mess with.”
She’ll be wearing contact lenses when No. 13 ASU opens its season Thursday with the first of 27 consecutive home games, but once her prescription is updated plans to break out the trademark goggles that somehow make her 65-68 miles-per-hour pitches more intimidating.
All told, it will be an even better Escobedo that returns to Team USA in December for the Junior World Championships in Cape Town, South Africa. “I know I’ve accomplished a lot already,” she said. “But there’s so much more that can be accomplished. I just can’t wait until this journey starts.”