UNLV SOFTBALL ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT: Racheal Goodpaster (1998-01) - Former Rebel All-American Shortstop, Current Police Office (18-year vet)

UNLV softball continues its new alumni spotlight series, highlighting former Rebels that built the foundation of the UNLV softball program.

A common theme in the alumni spotlights so far is the word home. When former Rebel All-American Racheal Goodpaster '01 was making her decision to come to UNLV in the late 90s, it wasn't necessarily about all the success the program had during that decade, but it was a feeling of home she got at UNLV. 

"I didn't really research too many schools and how they'd been doing in the past, but when I went on my recruiting trip, it just felt right. I met all the girls, and it just felt like a second home already," said Goodpaster. "The team was just awesome, I really liked the environment and the people, so it seemed like a really good fit." 

It's that family environment that many of the alumni have credited when they look back on their experiences here and what makes UNLV so special to them.

"I wouldn't change [my experience] for the world." said Goodpaster. "I met lifelong friends there. We all live in different parts of the country, but we all still are close. And no matter, if something really truly bad happened, they'd be there for you in a heartbeat, and they're also there to celebrate your best moments in life."

Once she arrived on campus, Goodpaster thrived in her four seasons as a Rebel shortstop, which included earning NFCA All-American honors as a junior in 2000. She is just one of three Rebels to pick up the award since UNLV joined the Mountain West in 2000 and one of only 12 players total in UNLV softball's 36-year history to garner the honor. Her name still appears on the majority of the career offensive lists in the UNLV record, a legacy that is not lost on Goodpaster.

"It feels awesome. I remember when I broke the single-season home run record, and I'll never forget it because we were at Utah and just as I was coming up to bat, it started to snow. Small flakes, but I knew it was going to be a great at-bat. One day, one of my co workers came up to me, he goes, why didn't you tell me? Tell you what? And he said I googled you last night. So it's really surprising to a lot of people. They're like, oh, man, you actually could play? So it's all just really humbling and cool to have that legacy of hey I'm still in those top-10 record lists."

After her playing career ended, Goodpaster set her sights on being a police officer - a journey sparked by her time at UNLV.

"It kind of started in college, I was going back and forth with majors. I wanted to be an athletic trainer first, but when they told me I'd have to do my clinical hours working with my own team, I didn't want to know all their ailments and issues and have them coming to me all the time to try and fix them. A teammate said hey come try this criminal justice class. The professor was awesome and I started falling in love with it and realized it was some pretty cool stuff. Then a friend of mine who was an officer asked if I wanted to go on a ride along and it was a lot of fun and after that I said I think this is something I'd really like to do. People always say they get into it to help people, but you truly do want to help people and make some kind of an impact. Whether it's saving somebody from a violent situation or just going out and playing with kids in the community. One person I know put it perfectly, we're adrenaline junkies because we can go from zero to 10,000 in less than a second, or you could go all day with nothing happening. It's something that has really grounded me and I haven't had to sit behind a desk. I get to constantly change my scenery."

While playing collegiate softball and facing everyday police situations are very different, the 18-year vet does believe that the high pressure situations she faced as a student-athlete helped prepare her for her career in the police force.

"It relates actually pretty well because when you are playing, the classic one when we were kids playing in the street, you are down two runs, bases are loaded, bottom seven and you have to hit a grand slam to win it. So it's that some kind of thing in college, there's a lot of pressure situations, runner on second, I've got to hit it through the right side so I can move the runner, or one that Coach [Shan] McDonald love to do to me and Linda Garza was the suicide squeeze. I mean, talk about pressure, as a runner you are like, many I've got to steal home and at the plate you have to get that bunt down or it was not pretty. So it really helped being under pressure and to learn not to be perfect, but to fulfill your job. And that teamwork correlates into police work, because we all have a job. If we're going into a house to search it, we all have a job, wherever we are standing in that stack or on a search warrant, so we all have these jobs and if one person fails, then your report will fail and you're getting hammered on the stand in court. So it's really important in what we do."

The diversity and growth she experienced at UNLV also prepared for life as a police officer.

"Where I grew up, we weren't super diverse, so coming down to UNLV, there is every walk of life and you meet a ton of different people, especially among the sports. We got to know the basketball team, there were swimmers on my floor, we hung out with the soccer players - there are still soccer players I talk to to this day. It was just really cohesive and you just grew your family bigger. That correlates especially into the job, everybody who wears the badge is a brother or sister in blue, is what we say."

Goodpaster also believes, in general, being a student-athlete sets you up for life after college in ways nothing else can.

"I think any person who walks onto a college campus and as a college athlete - whether it's scholarship, partial, walk-on - it helps you grow as a person, you learn so much and it really prepares you for the real world. You have to learn real time management and skills that sets you up in the real world for doing a job. I see all these kids coming through [the academy] that have never had to do anything of the sort and they are like, why am I not passing? And it's because they don't know how to prioritize and have the discipline to get things done. You have those strict guidelines in college, you don't have the GPA, you don't play, you get caught doing something bad, you're suspended, so that discipline was huge. But it also gives you the will to go forward with wanting to be successful in life."

Many of those lessons came from playing for UNLV Hall of Fame Coach Shan McDonald, who led the Rebels to all three of their Women's College World Series appearances. Goodpaster echoed the same sentiment that other alums have shared about Coach McDonald - that her standards were high but the players loved and respected her.

"She was definitely tough. You always had to walk that fine line that she was friendly with us, but she was professional and when you screwed up, you knew it. But that was okay, we really respected her. It was always interesting to learn from her, especially since she did so much internationally and with the Olympics when softball was really getting popular back then, so we really learned from her experiences and took that with us. I remember one time we got in trouble on a road trip and she gave us some tough love - it was not a good bus ride home, but we deserved it. She told us she was disappointed and that killed us. But we knew no matter what she loved each one of her players, so even when she was tough or we screwed up, she was still there for us. She really had that love for the game and her players."

When it comes to favorite memories from her playing days, Goodpaster remembers her last home game vividly.

"My last home game my senior year, my whole family was there because we were going to miss graduation because we were going to be on the road. So Coach McDonald did a little graduation ceremony for some of us. My grandma actually got my last home run ball that I hit. She helped raise me, so that was pretty special to be able to give that to her as a token of just all my appreciation to her." 

As an alum, Goodpaster takes pride in seeing fellow alums who have been successful as coaches, especially her old teammate Linda [Garza, Fresno State softball head coach].

"We were roommates our freshman year and you just knew coaching was ingrained in her, softball is her blood. I think it was always her dream to follow in Margie Wright's footsteps, so it's awesome to see her fulfilling that dream and doing well. We all knew she was going to do well, but it's cool for the whole world to see. Melissa [Inouye], man, that girl, I remember her from our orientation in the middle of the summer when we went in '97, we just happened to meet on the same tour. Then she'd come out to the games and eventually walked-on. But I know she's had a lot of success, winning conference championships and she's at Fordham now, it's really cool. And then Maggie at Boise State, I actually helped coach her, so it's really awesome to see her doing so well and just seeing all of them stay in the game, because not everybody gets to do that."

That UNLV pride also extends to following the current Rebels.

"It's pretty cool to see them doing so well. The program has been through ups and downs and there is always going to be those roller coasters, but hopefully Coach Fox can keep them climbing to the top and stay up there, because this program really can be a powerhouse, and people take that for granted. But I was looking at the roster this morning and it's great to see how much she's branched out in recruiting and it's not just limited to California kids, but also getting Vegas kids to stay home too."

"I remember Amanda Freed, who was one of the best pitchers in the nation at one point for UCLA, told me that she was always afraid to play us because we were that quiet team that you knew could beat you on any given day. So it's nice to see that Coach Fox has taken it back up to that level where people are afraid to play the Rebels again."