Hannah Roberts---a four-time All-State softball player and member of the Allen County-Scottsville fast pitch team that placed third in the 2000 state tournament---was officially inducted into the Kentucky Prep Softball Hall-of-Fame (HOF) in ceremonies June 17 in Corbin. Roberts and former AC-S pitcher Kelsi Pardue were among eight players and coaches entering the HOF this year, bringing to 118 the numbers of players, coaches, umpires, instructors, and media comprising the Hall.
“It’s feels great,” Roberts noted in a phone interview last week from her home in Baltimore. “This is a testament more to all the people I played with and was coached by then anything else. It’s an honor.”
Roberts’ softball career began and developed under the leadership and coaching of her father, Rick Roberts. The elder Roberts----himself a fast pitch softball player in Ohio as a young man----recognized that fast pitch was the future of the sport rather than the traditional slow pitch game. The foresight of Roberts ensured that his daughter learned the fast pitch game from a young age.
“I was fortunate to have my father who anticipated that Kentucky would switch to fast pitch,” Hannah Roberts recounted. “Even before we switched to fast pitch, I have lots of memories of starting to learn to pitch from him. We used to go the school and throw.”
By the time Roberts started to play for the AC-S varsity as a seventh grader in 1996, fast pitch softball had arrived at the high school level. Coach Roberts began to build the foundation for success for AC-S fast pitch. In the spring of 1999, Roberts was selected as an Honorable Mention All-State player. She would be a Second Team All-State selection as a sophomore and a First Team All-State member both her junior and senior seasons---honors that reflected outstanding softball players from all schools rather than the current format that selects All-State players by classes.
The 2000 season would be a special highlight of Hannah Roberts’ career as a Patriot. AC-S posted a 34-11 record, claimed the first of the program’s six regional titles, and finished third in the Kentucky High School Athletic Association (KHSAA) state tournament---a tournament in which she was selected to the All-Tournament Team. Roberts recorded an AC-S season-record 323 strikeouts, won 30 games, and helped Patriot pitching finish the year with a 0.60 Earned Run Average (ERA).
Roberts closed her six-year high school career with 107 wins---15th on the all-time KHSAA list for individual wins. She recorded 32 career shutouts. As a junior, Roberts posted a season ERA of 0.36 (20th best all-time per KHSAA records) and followed with a ERA of 0.39 as a senior.
Following high school graduation, Roberts attended the University of Chicago where she focused on academics and was a three-year softball player. Roberts was a three-time NCAA Division III All American in 2003, 2004, and 2005. In 2004, she recorded the lowest ERA in the nation (0.24). To this day, Roberts remains Chicago’s record leader in career ERA (0.39), season ERA (0.24), career shutouts (24), and season strikeouts (226). She is also second all-time in career wins (49) and strikeouts (591) at the University of Chicago despite forgoing her senior season.
Reflecting on her days at AC-S, Roberts was quick to point out that she has fond memories and life-long friendships because of her years on the diamond.
“The strongest memories I have are of the friendships I developed with my teammates,” Roberts noted. “I started playing high school team when I was in seventh grade. Several of the older girls were really kind to me and took me under their wings. I looked up to them and appreciated them. Later, some of my best friendships and life-lessons came from the girls I played with in high school. I grew to depend on them as friends and teammates and how motivated you were not to let down you cared about.”
Roberts were originally selected for the softball HOF in 2007---in her first year of eligibility five years following the close of her high school career. However, following her graduation with honors from the University of Chicago in 2006, Roberts served as a volunteer with the Peace Corps in Kyrgyzstan from 2006 to 2008. Being out of the country delayed the introduction with HOF officials opting to complete the honor with induction this year. Now, she joins the softball HOF and is alongside her father who was inducted in 2003.
“I am like my dad in that I am not much for ceremony and recognition,” Roberts added. “He is one of the most influential people in my life. I think about all the things I have been able to do reflect both of my parents and softball was just one of them. I learned how to throw a great curve ball from my father but in the end, that isn’t what’s important now. The work ethic that my father taught me, the way he taught me to carry myself on and off the field, the commitment to making the world a better place, and standing up for what is right---all of those things I inherited from my father and has shaped who I am as a person.”
In life beyond college, Roberts has worked for the non-profit Walden House in San Francisco for two years and a non-profit agency in Washington DC. Today, her career has taken her to a position in the mayor’s office in Baltimore where she works to enhance the opportunities for individuals through a non-profit housing program. Roberts also obtained a Masters in Social Work from the University of Michigan in 2013.