Without a ball as much as being put in play, the score went from 2-0 to 2-2.
Charlee Parris was standing at second base as her teammate at-bat drew a bases-loaded walk. Those typically score just one run. But Parris noticed a slight lapse in awareness and took full advantage. She got to third, the pitcher turned her back, and before the defense reacted, she was diving into home to tie the game.
Her Alexandria High School softball team went on to score the go-ahead run a batter later.
That’s the story of Charlee Parris.
Parris, who wraps up her four-year run with the Valley Cubs this spring, has spent her high school years doing exactly what she did on that play. She saw something, took a chance and made it work. As a senior, she is a two-time all-state softball player, an all-state basketball honoree and a standout in volleyball and on the cheer squad. And she is doing it at Alexandria, a school in Calhoun County where doing one thing well would be enough for most.
“Everything she does is all out,” Alexandria softball coach Brian Hess said.
Hess has known Parris since she was in seventh grade, back when she was playing JV and doing the kinds of things JV players are not supposed to do. He brought her up to the varsity roster late in her eighth-grade year, and the moment that stuck with him happened at the state tournament, against a pitcher headed to UAB.
He kept the instructions simple before her at-bat. Don’t do anything stupid.
She got on, watched the outfielder hesitate and took second base. Then, she took third.
“I wasn’t paying attention,” said Hess, who coaches third base. “I see dust moving around. I look down, she looks up at me, and I said, ‘What are you doing?’
She’s had the perpetual green light ever since. Parris does not need a sign. She has the right to run and always has, and the number of times it has backfired is quite small.
Last season, she hit .419 with 67 hits and 36 stolen bases. She has played several different positions in her time at Alexandria, from catcher to center field to second base. She reads the game the way a player twice her age might, which is something Hess traces back to her sophomore year.
“She’s figured out, I’ll take a walk and then I’ll just make it a triple,” he said. “She makes them throw to her, and that’s what makes her a special player.”
Hess compared her to Ricky Henderson.
“She’s our version of him,” Hess said. “She started, like, 10th grade, having some pop with the bat, started hitting a few home runs, and then the stolen bases.”
There was a play last season against Plainview where she took off for third not knowing the third baseman already had the ball. She almost beat it anyway.
When asked to explain where all of it comes from, Parris pointed to her parents.
“If it wasn’t for them, I probably wouldn’t be like that,” she said. “They’ve raised me to be 120% no matter what.”
That mentality has shown up in four different uniforms. Parris has hardly had an offseason since she was old enough to have one. Volleyball, basketball, softball, cheer. She has done all of them, every year, at the same pace. The all-state recognition has followed across multiple sports, including a basketball nod this past year to go alongside her two in softball.
She credits the upperclassmen who came through Alexandria’s program before her with shaping who she became. Presley Slaton, Alyssa Hunt, Ashley Phillips, Rylee Gattis and Chloe Gattis just to name a few stars that she’s played alongside.
“When I came up here in eighth grade, they kind of took me under their wing,” Parris said. “They were great role models.”
Now she is the one in that role. And when this season ends, Hess said there will be a void at second base that is not easy to put into words.
Parris is headed to Gadsden State after graduation, where she will continue playing softball and study obstetric sonography. She’ll only be a single-sport athlete for the first time.
Anyone who knows Parris has a great idea of how she will attack that new challenge in addition to the first steps to her career path: full speed ahead.
Or, as Hess calls it, “Charlee being Charlee.”