Since the age of nine, Meredith McLendon’s career has been running at top speed and has no plan of stopping anytime soon. Inspired by her father’s mutual love for sports, she enjoyed many hobbies growing up.
“I am definitely a daddy’s girl,” McClendon says.
She’s taken up cheerleading, gymnastics, basketball, and golf over the years, but softball has been her first calling. And today, at 18 years old and standing at 5’7”, the calling has been boldly and proficiently answered.
She always wanted to a part of a team. It is a place where she finds the opportunity to focus her hard work and leadership whenever it is needed most.
“I’m glad I chose softball, because I know I have an impact on something bigger than myself,” she says.
After years of playing in travel circuits year-round and school ball in the fall, McLendon gained regional acclaim and was featured as an In The Game Rising Star during her eighth-grade year in 2011. The previous year was marked by the excellent season of the Hahira Middle School Vikettes, with whom she won a championship. Since then, she has been traveling around the country with the metro-Atlanta-based Georgia Impact and playing ball with Valwood School.
Fighting for and striving for success are more than athletic creed she lives by, but throughout her academic career she has consistently put forth an outstanding performance. Having both parents as teachers has greatly influenced her on and off the field. They have always encouraged her to live up to her potential and do better. However, she feels that most people don’t see how important failures are as well.
“What people don’t realize is that you fail so much,” she says. “You can’t get down on yourself, but you must persevere because the mental aspect is the key.”
As fiercely competitive as McLendon is, her light-hearted spirit helps keep her and her teammates in a cheerful mood. Their favorite ritual before almost every game is to play the song “Fergalicious” and see who can do the rapping part the best.
“Sometimes I get ahead of myself and get upset at my team,” she says. “But everyone is learning, and the end of the day we all have fun, win or lose.”
However, losing is more foreign to McLendon than winning. Still, she is humble in her accomplishments.
“I have a lot,” she says when asked about her trophy collection. “I haven’t really counted them.”
Her longtime goal of earning a softball scholarship to a Division I school was far from humble, but that did not stop her. Earlier in the spring of 2014, several schools were looking to recruit McLendon. She decided to accept a scholarship from Georgia Southern, where she will be attending next fall. The main reasons for her acceptance were how welcomed she felt and how the location was not too far from home.
She has big future ahead of her, and she knows that college will be a much more rigorous process.
“I want to thank everyone,” she says. “This softball team this year taught me so much, and I want to thank my parents and family; there’s no other place I want to be.”
South Georgia / November 2015
Meredith McClendon
Valwood School
Hahira, Ga.
Former Rising Star Ready for Transition to College
By Carnell Tate
