Olympic Athlete interview: Dot Richardson

With Major League Baseball opening day this week and the 75^th anniversary of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League occurring this year, my interview with Dot Richardson made speaking to her very special. The famous USA shortstop of the 1996 Summer Olympics took the country by storm with Team USA Softball by winning the first gold medal in the sport. Dr. Richardson met me during Liberty’s softball tournament in Southern California where I was able to find out the story of Dr. Dot.

RM: You wanted to play baseball since you were six, and four years later while throwing to your brother on a baseball diamond, a man came up to you to offer you a little league position but you had to look and act like a boy. I loved what you said about not playing if you could not be yourself and make a point that girls were as good as boys in the game. Do you feel like that story made you a legend and an idol to girls who watched you play over the years?

DR: Yes. (laughing ensued between the two of us after a short answer)

Another man came up to you later that day and introduced you to a woman who coached a women’s softball team. She offered you a chance to play for her and yet you were only ten! What was it like the first few days playing with women much older than you?

It was fantastic. The reason is because I learned at a very early age that it doesn’t matter how old you are. It really matters how good you want to be and how good you are. There’s a place for everyone and I see that in society as well. We all have our roles to play. What was really nice is that the team didn’t treat me as you think they would treat a 13-year-old which gave me the message that in sports that it’s really about competing. For me, they just embraced me as a teammate and I say that to my team right now, and through all the years, that we’re all different but we all have a role to play not just in the sport, but in life.

It turned out to become a major impact on your life. You played for the women’s fast pitch league, and after graduating high school you got to play for Western Illinois University. Tell me about that transition from fast pitch to college softball?

It might sound funny to you now but my goal, my ultimate goal, was to not play softball in college. I could not wait for summer to play women’s major ball because it was the best of the best. Right now, the way that college is, every young girl’s aspiration is to play college ball. For me… I just love playing. I didn’t mind playing it (don’t get me wrong), I look forward to it. I couldn’t wait to play women’s major ball. One of the things that I feel bad about right now is that we do not have a really strong women’s major league anymore and we also do not have a professional level that is able to expand beyond where it’s at with four or five teams throughout the years. The opportunity for an athlete to play past 21 years of age to me is important because I was able to play until I was 39.

You then transferred to UCLA knowing of their prestigious achievements in sports and played softball for three years where you racked up the MVP award three times and helped the Bruins to

their first NCAA softball title in 1982. Were you already studying medicine to become an orthopedic surgeon and what made you decide to focus in that field?

UCLA won the AIAW national championship in 1978 and I happened to be in Florida and heard about the win in California, but it wasn’t just softball. UCLA was winning championships in basketball, volleyball, softball, track and field, and I believe gymnastics in all the major women’s sports and I wanted to be a part of that. I wanted to be able to compete with the best of the best throughout the nation. From a young age, I had been able to have a standard that was shown to me every day by these elite women athletes. That was my expectation, not only of myself, but of my teammates.

So, I wanted to try to get to UCLA but it wasn’t happening. I went to Western Illinois, played field hockey (loved it), played basketball (loved it), and played softball (loved it). I had a fantastic softball coach. We ended up fifth in the nation in softball. I led the country with a .480 batting average and everything was great. Sharron Backus heard about me when I made the Pan American team in 1979 when I was 17. I had already committed to WIU with a national letter of intent.

While there, the coach of Team USA Basketball at the Pan Ams was also the coach at UCLA. So, as a result, I met him which led to him telling Sharon about me. After a season, she called to get me to transfer to UCLA because it was a goal of mine. My sister told me ‘you’re gonna do it now. Think of yourself. I know you don’t want to let any of them down. You need to go to UCLA.’ It all worked out and I transferred after one year at WIU.

At WIU, my goal was to be an athletic trainer. They had one of the top programs in the nation. I loved it but I felt like I wanted a little more. So during my second semester, I looked at physical therapy and then I realized, ‘Wait a minute, I think I want a little more.’ So that’s when I decided to go pre-med which UCLA offered.

It seemed that aside from your academic career, the chance to play for USA Softball in 1996 became your top priority. Tell me about the training camp that year and what the selection process was like?

I thought that I wouldn’t be able to fulfill the dream of becoming an Olympian. Everyone thought that with all the sports I played, I chose the wrong sport because all the others were in the Olympics except for softball. Tennis got in at the 1984 games and that year Jackie Joyner Kersee and I shared the All-University Athlete Award during our senior year at UCLA. She went on to Olympic stardom and there was still no softball in the Olympics.

I went to Delphi University in Long Island, New York where I coached softball for the first time as a graduate assistant and got my Master’s degree. I realized that medicine was what I was going to pursue. I got accepted to a number of medical schools and chose to go to the University of Louisville medical school. In 1992, at the Barcelona Olympics, they mentioned that softball could be in those Olympics with baseball. Baseball was already in the Olympics in 1984 as an exhibition and it became an official sport in 1992. However, softball wasn’t part of the program, even as an exhibition.

So, I knew that being in medical school just wasn’t going happen for me. So here I am in medical school and the day I turned in my match list of where I wanted to do my residency, we found out that softball was going to be in the Olympics in 1996 for the first time in history.As I turned in my list, I said a prayer and what ended up happening, is that I went to the University of Southern California which makes me living proof that the Bruins and Trojans can get along.

I secretly tried out for the Olympic team which nobody knew. During the tryouts in St. Louis, I fielded a ground ball and threw it to first. Someone took a picture of me making the play and it found its way into the center of Sports Illustrated in the people section. The guys in my residency saw it and the secret got out. Because that secret got out, I got called into the office and met with Michael Patzakis, who was the chief of orthopedics at USC Medical Center. He told me that the board gave me a yearlong leave of absence to pursue my childhood dream of Olympic gold.

You had already been playing in international competition since 1979 where USA softball won in the Pan Ams three times prior to the Olympics in Atlanta. When I re-watched some of those games, you totally stole the spotlight that summer when Derek Jeter was playing as a rookie for the Yankees. You made some incredible stops at shortstop, especially in that 10-0 win against Puerto Rico. You also hit the first home run in the Olympics. What’s it like to know you will forever be the first woman to hit a home run in the Olympic games?

(Laughing) Let me tell you that it is humbling because I had been the leadoff batter for the United States for a number of years. So, when you think of who’s going to hit the first home run, I probably wasn’t the highest on the list. But I can tell you that the adrenaline was flowing. I hit three home runs and I mean I can hit them, but my goal normally is to get on base. My teammates are even happy if I got hit by a pitch just to get on base. My goal though is to set the table and my first at bat I got a base hit. The next batter bunted and I took second base.

Lisa Fernandez then got a base hit. I ended up scoring a run and she got the first RBI in Olympic history. I ended up with the first American hit and scored the first run in Olympic history for the sport. When the pitch came during my fourth at bat, I hit the ball to dead center field over the fence. The eruption of the crowd for the first home run in Olympic history was contagious. My arms were up in the air when I was rounding second base and the reason why was because I had had three dreams; one of them was that I hit a home run on my first at bat.

The second dream was hitting a home run to right field which ended up being the home run in the gold medal game. The third dream was seeing all of us on the Olympic gold medal podium with the gold medals around our necks. So not only did I fulfill my dreams, but I wished that everyone could feel what I was feeling at least once in their lifetime.

It wasn’t about hitting that home run, it was really about being willing to dream big. My whole life to that point was people saying ‘no you can’t do this, no that’s not going to happen, you might as well forget about it. Becoming an Olympian, being a doctor, or going to California for school-forget about it. It’s never going to happen’ Then there I was rounding second base with the first home run in Olympic history realizing that dreams can come true. I hope that inspired people to pursue those dreams and to feel what I was feeling. That’s what inspired me to write the book “Living the Dream” because all three of dreams came true.

The next four games made it look like USA was unstoppable. From the wins over the Netherlands and Japan, to the fast pitching of Lori Harrigan (who you helped with some great catches giving her a two hitter over Taiwan), Team USA was on a tear. Then came the game againstAustralia. I read an article in the New York Times that said when Danielle Tyler was called out for not touching the plate, you gave the umpire a piece of your mind saying, “You don’t take that away in the Olympics when she hit the ball over the fence by 20 feet. She deserved that moment”

You’re right.

The game went into extra winnings where a rule came into play about putting a runner on second during each team’s at-bat. How long had that rule been in place prior to 1996?

First about the game: Lisa Fernandez had the ball because Australia was one of our top competitors-them and china. Lisa was probably throwing the greatest game that I have ever seen her throw and if Danielle Tyler was not called out for missing home plate, she would have had a perfect game. When I was watching Dannie touch home, I thought that the back of her shoe had touched the black of home plate. When she got to the dugout, the appeal happened. When she was called out, I was furious. I just thought it was too close to call but obviously hitting a home run, she should have stepped on the center of home plate, put her arms up, and taken a bow. She had worked so hard on her hitting and I was one of her hitting partners as well. I believed she deserved that moment but it is a rule and that’s what the umpire saw.

From Bill Lee in 1975 to Bob Stanley for the Red Sox in 1986, people talk about certain pitches that were thrown in the World Series or playoff games in baseball. Did you get a lot of questions about Fernandez’s choice to throw that pitch while she had a perfect game? And if so, what was your response to that?

I told Lisa that was the greatest game I had ever seen her pitch. Dannie felt terrible because it would have been a perfect game and given us the win. However, God works in mysterious ways and I knew right away why that had happened. For some reason, it hit me as to why it happened and I told Lisa, ‘The only way that this makes sense is that the next Olympics in 2000 are in Sydney, Australia and maybe this loss is a sacrifice to get into those games.’ Lisa looked at me and said, ‘If that’s the reason, then and only then, can I accept it.’ As painful as it was, when softball got into the Olympics in 2000, it was all erased when we came back to win the gold medal like we did.

Many didn’t realize at the time that it wasn’t the game that would cost you a shot at the gold medal. You came back from it to play China two more times before beating them to win gold on July 30^th, where you hit the last HR of the 96 Olympics. The media attention on you and the girls was crazy. What was it like for you during that and how long did it take for you to get into your third year of residency? It was crazy, overwhelming, exciting and humbling and it started immediately. As soon as it was over, there were security guards almost arm in arm that surrounded the field to keep the fans from jumping on the field. There was one picture I have saved in my mind of a boy and girl standing together. Each of them were bending over the railing trying to reach towards me to share in the Olympic gold moment. That was powerful for me because as you mentioned, I was denied the opportunity to play baseball because I was a girl. The ‘96 Olympics to me was really when everyone fell in love with all athletes, no matter the gender, because it was captivating. What was bigger than that was when I was handed a microphone to talk to Bob Costas to do an interview after the game. I was the only one who could hear him so I had all my teammates around me so I could share with them the questions he was asking. So I became a junior broadcaster at the time and it was an awesome moment.

After that, there were interviews in the tent. Afterwards, we were able to see our friends and family. A couple of us were chosen to do an interview with “The Today Show” in Atlanta at like five in the morning. I packed super fast and didn’t sleep. So we did the show and then I flew out to LA to go back to my residency.
When I got to the airport people started swarming the limo. I walked into the American Airlines terminal and everyone stopped and began clapping and I’m like, ‘what is going on?’ I didn’t know so many people lived that moment with us. I got upgraded to first class and had a media frenzy on my hands. I then got on another flight in Dallas and I saw this dad and his daughter and he looks and says ‘There goes Doctor Dot.’ I was so tired and when we got to LA there were reporters again. At my house in Pasadena, I had interviews out in the front yard and had to get ready for work the next day.

I thought I knew what it was going to be like but instead, there was this huge party out in front of the hospital. During my first time back at work, reporters began to follow me around during my rounds and I got a call from Dr. Patzakis to report to his office immediately. I thought I was going to be in trouble. So I go into his office and he told me that I was a major distraction. He told me to go to the White House, do the David Letterman show, and go to the Walt Disney World parade and come back in one week.

I asked before I left if I could go to the Children’s hospital to share the gold medal. As I’m walking down the hill from the general hospital, this photographer comes up and asks if he can take some photos while I visited. There was an amazing moment, more than any of them, when I visited a girl in the ICU who had brain surgery four days earlier. As I walked into her room I noticed her mom and sister seated on either side of her.

I introduced myself and put the gold medal around her neck. I got cheek to cheek with her, looked up at the photographer and said, ‘smile it’s the Olympic gold.’ I walked away and said ‘you look good in gold,’ and she gave this huge smile and said ‘is it real gold?’ To which I replied, ‘well it’s really 90% silver and 10% gold, but it’s pure gold to me.’ Then we talked a little bit longer than I realized. When I finally left, I noticed her mother was crying and so was her sister and the nurses outside the room were crying as well. I asked if everything was okay and if I had done something wrong. They told me this child hadn’t spoken a single word since her surgery until now. Talk about an Olympic moment.

When I got back to my residency after the ‘96 Olympics, I was in surgery and the guys were talking about the World Series between the Yankees and the Braves. I received a phone call from my agent telling me the Yankees asked if I would throw out the first pitch. I said no because of work. When I told my coworkers that I waved off the chance to throw the first pitch, they were surprised and told me to do it. I called my agent Tom McCarthy and instead of going to Yankee Stadium to throw out the first pitch, it was now back in Atlanta. I flew out to throw the first pitch in the World Series and while I was out there on the mound, I quickly reflected back to the moment I was pitching to my brother outside of a little league game pretending that I was throwing in a major league game.


The run Team USA had in Australia in 2000 was something out of a Steven Spielberg film. The team had two shutouts followed by losing three in a row, a feat never done before. After wins against New Zealand and Italy, you came back to beat China, Australia, and play Japan for the gold.

Everything in Sydney seemed to go wrong. We did not have very easy games. We had so many extra-inning games. We were fighting tooth and nail…it was a challenge. I believe that’s why I was on the team and it was more than just as a performance. It was more of being able to help my teammates by telling them that it’s not over till it’s over, life isn’t easy, and why do you expect this sport to be easy?
We had to continue to believe and after those three losses, I was the one chosen to do those interviews. Everyone believed that there was no way we could come back to win any medal, let alone a gold. I told everyone, ‘You keep watching because USA softball is gonna have one of the greatest comebacks in Olympic history.’ I believed it and we did it.

That was your last Olympic as you went on to continue your career in medicine and later received offers to go into politics. It wasn’t until July 17, 2013 when Liberty University called to offer you a major deal that would put your legendary career in softball into immortality. Tell me about that.

In the morning I got a call out of the blue from the Liberty University athletic director. How they got my number I did not know. Their previous softball coach was retiring and they were looking for a replacement for him. They wanted someone who had experience in the game and had a name to bring some credibility to the program. I asked where Liberty University was and found out they were in Lynchburg, Virginia and is the largest Christian University in the world.

I instantly remembered the prayer I had the night before and that got my attention. They wanted to put Liberty on the map, make it to the top 25 in the nation, and also win World Series championships. They were going to give me the budget to make it happen and they wanted to build a new stadium by my design even if I didn’t take the job. I said that I was humbled by the opportunity but had never been a head coach in college before. They realized that but felt the Lord was bringing us together.

I called my husband and he knew about it because people close to us gave the University my number. My husband said we must do this before I had even made a decision. I trusted God and went for a visit. I accepted the job and a few days later, I was in a conference room designing a stadium.

Your first season was really tough with an 11-46 record but after a couple of years, you led the Lady Flames to a Big South Conference title. This year, your team is 9-2 (as of February 23). Is this the year you make it deep into the College softball World Series?

This is the year we have the talent to make it to the college world series but our goal is to never to say regionals, super regionals, or college world series because when you get to the postseason, anything can happen. I would never stand up and say that we’re going to win this or that. What we’re going to do is to commit ourselves to be the best we can be and if this team reaches their full potential, and plays the best they can, we have the opportunity to win big.

Are there any chances that you would take on a supporting role in Team USA Softball’s return to the Olympics in 2020?

I haven’t heard from them. I’ve been in the pool but I have not been selected. I do have a dream to be on the staff for 2024 and 2028 Olympics in Paris and Los Angeles.

How excited are you about the 2028 Olympics coming back to Los Angeles?

Not only excited but extremely humbled to be able to share the experience that I had as an athlete with the media. It is hard to share that with an athlete if you haven’t been someone who has experienced it.

Tell us something not many Olympic fans know about you?

I was pretty shy. I remember being in tenth grade Spanish class and I had to give a speech. I remember going up in front of the class and I had tried to make it as easy as possible by talking about “El Gato.” My heart was pounding and my palms were sweating. After getting back to my desk after talking, I don’t even remember what I said. I asked God that if I were to talk in front of so many people, can it at least be in a language that I know well.

I remember saying that prayer every time I was asked to speak in front of people. Whether it’s this interview, talking with Bob Costas, and even talking for corporations doing motivational speaking with 10,000 people. Whether it’s in front of the Coliseum in front of 40,000 or 60,000 people. I always remember that prayer and the commitment I made. I realize that it’s really not about me, but the message that I’m able to share to impact other people.