“Sophomore year of high school I ended up doing really well in softball. After that, college started to become an option.” — Myranda Ramirez
“Just to one-up me”
Myranda Ramirez has played ball since she was three years old. Now, 18 years later, 911 miles from home with one regional title under her belt, she finds herself a starter on the Whitworth University softball team.
Ramirez doesn’t just start in games, however. She has begun what she hopes will become a family tradition: going to college.
“We went with what softball was doing”
This game-changer for the Ramirez family first became a dream when Ramirez’s high school softball career began to take off. Her stepfather (and softball coach at the time) began to walk through the college admissions process with her.
By junior year of high school, Ramirez had signed a verbal contract with Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
“Everything was working out until I was denied a Cal Grant loan — that’s like $30,000 — and I started freaking out,” Ramirez said.
After that, Willamette University in Salem, Ore., got wind of Ramirez’s talent and assembled a hodge-podge of scholarships, grants and endowments in order for Ramirez to play for the team. Ramirez had spent two years at Willamette when she decided the school didn’t fit her needs.
After a three-hour conversation in a Sacramento Applebee’s with mentor and Coach Randy Clark, Ramirez decided to bring her talent — both in academics and athletics — to the pinecone curtain.
“They agreed to let me shadow”
“I’m like the mom of everyone,” Ramirez said. “When my littlest brother was born, my mom had to stay in the hospital for a two or three days because he was a premie. I became mom to my little brother and sister. I had to take them to school, get their stuff together, get them to practices on time. I was like, ‘yep, this is what I do now.’”
That experience inspired her to pursue several internships in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), fostering her interest in pediatric nursing.
Ramirez has a real passion for patient care and she says Whitworth’s nursing program has been “a good fit.” By the time she graduates in 2017, Ramirez will have two degrees: a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Whitworth and a graduate degree in nursing from either Washington State University or University of Washington.
