Editor's Note: Kennesaw State senior shortstop Jessie Mullen will be honored as the All Sports Association Northwest Florida Female Collegiate Athlete of the Year at a banquet Friday evening at the Emerald Coast Convention Center in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Heisman Trophy Winner Tim Tebow will serve as the event's Keynote Speaker. Mullen is featured in Tuesday's (Feb. 12) Northwest Florida Daily News by Sam Grubenhoff. Below is Grubenhoff's story.
Original Post |
All Sports Association
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By Sam Grubenhoff |
Northwest Florida Daily News
KENNESAW, Georgia —
Jessie Mullen knew the spark had gone out.
In two years at Arkansas, she had been in and out of the Razorbacks' lineup. She had lost the coach who had recruited her after her freshman season. She had tried to play through a torn up right ankle to no avail. She lived almost 12 hours from her childhood home in Niceville.
It all took a toll.
Softball, the sport she had loved for so long, was not fun anymore. Mullen, a Niceville alumna, needed a change, something to reignite her love for the sport and get her closer to home. In the midst of an eight-month rehab for torn ligaments and bone and cartilage damage in her right ankle, Mullen decided to transfer from Fayetteville.
Niceville softball coach Danny Hensley, the man who shepherded Mullen's high school career and helped to mold her into a three-time All-State infielder, recommended Kennesaw State.
Although the Kennesaw, Georgia, school was smaller and the ASUN Conference lacked the draw of the SEC, Mullen, now a redshirt senior, found a place where she could fall back in love with softball.
She started 59 games as a redshirt sophomore and 56 this past year and owns a career .199 batting average with the Owls. She has hit 11 home runs, knocked in 39 RBIs and scored 44 runs herself.
She has even been to an NCAA Regional, playing a key role for last year's Owl squad that went 39-17 en route to an ASUN Conference championship and a postseason berth at the regional in Tallahassee. A Florida State fan growing up, Mullen said to play on that field and to have the opportunity to compete in a regional was "really awesome."
"I've really enjoyed the program," she said. "The softball program is actually very different from an SEC style program, and I found a love for the game again. Even though it's a smaller conference and a smaller school, the most important thing playing in college is loving what you're doing. I re-found that in my transfer.
 "It's been really great to finish out my career loving what I'm doing."
Mullen's journey has not been easy, but for her perseverance and for her distinguished representation of the Florida Panhandle, its athletic programs and its communities she will be awarded the All Sports Association All Sports Collegiate Award at the association's 50th Annual Awards Banquet on Friday.
"It feels like an honor," she said. "I'm very grateful to be nominated and chosen for this. It's kind of surreal because I've been gone in college for four years.
"It really feels good for the area I grew up in to honor me for everything it did for me."
Regrettably, Mullen won't be able to attend the banquet Friday because the Owls are headed to Chattanooga for their second tournament of the season. Instead, her mother and Hensley will represent her.
"I would love to be there," Mullen said. It seems like an amazing event, but it's not in the right season."
A year after posting their third best win total since moving up to Division I in 2006, the Owls are off to a slow 1-4 start, but Mullen has been producing at the plate, posting a .333 batting average with four RBIs and home run in five games. In what is most likely her final year playing softball, Mullen aims to keep it up, she said.
She wants to finish strong.
"My goals are to give it everything I have," she said. "I want to look back and not regret anything."
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