Starting at a young age, sophomore Jordana Storm loved watching baseball and was determined to continue with this passion. She found this enthusiasm in softball. This dedication followed her to college, which is when she decided to leave her home in Walla Walla, Washington for Fordham University. Although it was difficult at first, Storm has come to love New York and the hustle and bustle of the city.

Storm grew up in a quiet town with approximately 30,000 people and attended Walla Walla High School where she was a four-year varsity player and served as team captain her senior year. She was also a part of a summer team, the Washington Lady Hawks, which she helped lead to a ninth place finish in the 2014 Premier Girls Fastpitch (PGF) Nationals competition. She said that being a part of this travel team helped ease the transition from high school to college. By traveling across the country playing, Storm become accustomed to the same competition she would face in college: “it was fun, but very similar to a college team in the fact that I had to dedicate a lot of time to it,” Storm said.

Traveling was a large component of the team. Storm played on a team in Seattle, where every weekend she would drive over five hours to practice for eight hours across two days. This caused her to miss out on normal school activities such as dances and school events on the weekends. However, she does believe that all this hard work and dedication paid off.

During this time in high school Storm was featured in Softball West, a sports magazine, that named her on the “Best of the West top 100.” She said she actually did not find out about this honor until a month after it was released. “My high school coach had left so the principal of my school had to call me. I honestly thought I was in trouble, but then I realized what it was for and was pretty pumped,” Storm said.

As for high school memories, Storm said that her favorite was either playing in the state championships two separate times or being able to play at the University of Washington. University of Washington was one of her dream schools growing up, which made this experience surreal for her.

When it came to college, Storm was deciding between Boston College, Georgia Tech and Fordham University. She said that, out of all the schools, Fordham’s team was the one that seemed like a true family. Also, before coming to Fordham she knew junior Morgan Figueroa, who was on the team back home with her.

Now, after being on the team, she feels that they are a family. Storm said that they “truly do play for each other and want each other to succeed.” Last year the team won the Atlantic-10 Conference, and she believes that it will always be a great memory since it was a team effort. In fact, this is Storm’s favorite memory at Fordham. “Having to win three games in one day was insane and was an emotional rollercoaster,” storm said that she hopes that they can do it again this season. Following that, they shared a great experience when they played against Oregon and other top notch schools in the Oregon regional competition.

During her time at Fordham, Storm has had the opportunity to learn a lot from the school and her team. She stated that she’s “had to grow and has come to understand [her] role on the team.” Since it was just her at Fordham, and there was no family to check in on her constantly, she learned to mature as a person and “make sure [she] was doing what needed to be done. Being an athlete, you don’t get a lot of free time, so learning how to manage the time to both get work done and relax was a key to success,” storm explained.

Of course, when it comes to home, Storm misses her mom, sister and dog. She also mentioned that since she is from the northwest, she “misses the open space, like the numerous mountains and trees that surround [her].”

At Fordham, Storm is a communications and culture major with a concentration in media studies and a minor in business administration. She decided on these majors because they cover many fields. With Fordham, she loves the opportunities she’s had to receive internships and how the school has a large network that exposes students to many different fields.

Looking into the future, it is Storm’s goal to first find an internship and decide what she wants to do with her life. She loves the idea of staying on the east coast and finding a job in the sports world, such as working for the front office of a Major League Baseball (MLB) team.