Skylar Padgett

senior, infielder

You’re studying human development here at NDSU, do you know what you want to do with that?

I kind of want to be a child life specialist in a hospital and kind of focus on kids mainly with cancer in the family, part of it because my grandpa passed away because of cancer and ever since then, it’s been a main focus of mine. So, hopefully I can go somewhere down that road.

Being from Oregon, do you have the game against the Ducks circled on your calendar?

Yes. Last year, our game against them definitely didn’t go how we all wanted it to. So for me, in my head, SDSU and Oregon are the main games. I’m just so ready for them.

What drew you to come to Fargo?

Once I got on campus and just met the coaches and everything, it just kind of drew me in. There is a huge family aspect here and even outside of the campus, it feels like home away from home. My recruiting coach always told me, “Once you’re at somewhere that feels like home, you’ll know.” When we left here after my visit, I was like, okay, that’s where I want to go.

My mom tried everything to keep me from going on a visit here. She’d ask me if I even knew what this place looked like and I didn’t. I didn’t even really know what North Dakota is. I had to write my mom a paper with facts about North Dakota and facts about the school and some of the players that have gone here.… Eventually, she agreed to do the visit and I instantly fell in love here.

Do you think you will stay around here after you are done?

No, I have family in Georgia and I plan to go there.

Is this your final season at NDSU?

Maybe. I still have my COVID year, but I’d kind of just like to wait and see where it goes from here.

Is there anything in particular you are looking forward to about the season?

I think going to Mexico will be pretty cool. I’ve never been there before. And I think just playing against really good teams, especially with our team, it’s going to be really good for us. We have an older team, but a younger team at the same time. If somebody gets hurt, we’re relying on all of our freshmen. And I think that’s really good because our freshmen are more than capable of doing it and being put in a job anywhere.

Which freshmen have been impressing you?

They’re all doing so amazing which is very cool to see.

As a leader, how do you try to help them?

Probably just with reps and stuff, and at least, practice-wise, probably just giving them tips on some things. Mental health is kind of huge for me because I’ve gone through a whole bunch of stuff. And so I just kind of helped them on their day to day basis. I like to check-in. I think that is such a big thing. I just kind of like trying to be that person that they can come to and talk to outside of softball. Because sometimes as a freshman, that’s pretty hard to do.

What do you think you’ve improved on most from last season?

I wouldn’t say necessarily anything physical. Yes, I’ve gotten better physically, but mostly I’ve just been getting mentally stronger and I think the biggest thing that I’ve learned and worked on is knowing that I’m going to fail and being okay with failing. Not failing all the time, but just being okay knowing that I’m going to fail and it’s going to happen. I don’t ever want to fail. I just want to be kind of perfect at everything. So that was always a big mental struggle for me because I was getting in my own way.

Do you have any postgraduate plans yet?

Law enforcement.

Are you thinking you’ll stay in the Fargo-Moorhead area for that?

That’s a good question. I don’t know. They’ve kind of offered paying for half of the skills program here in Fargo. So I mean, it’s definitely an option, but it’s also really stinking cold here.

Why do you want to be a police officer? What made you want to do that?

I took a class in high school, and it was called Street Law. And basically it was we figured out the way bodies were being dragged and like forensics and stuff. And it was really interesting. So then going into college, I was like, I don’t know what I want to do. And