Chelsea Forkin’s recent induction into the Softball Australia Hall of Fame not only honours one of our greatest sporting stars but also is a fitting homage to her remarkable and diverse accomplishments in life thus far.
Ms Forkin represented Australia in softball at five Open World Championships (making her debut at the Tokyo 2020 Games).
Speaking about the induction night held on 1 February, Ms Forkin recounted a sense of poignancy in “celebrating such an honour in front of friends, family, old teammates and coaches.”
“I was lucky enough to be inducted with longtime Aussie Spirit teammates Stacey Porter and Justine Smethurst at Downey Park, home of the Brisbane Softball Association, where I played most of my club softball for the last 15 years,” Ms Forkin said.
From Early Beginnings to Life Beyond the Diamond
According to Ms Forkin, who started playing teeball as a youngster and then moved onto baseball before entering into a career as a softballer, her earliest memory of playing ball was as a six-year-old.
“My older brother Nick, who is six years older, played teeball and then baseball, so I naturally followed in his footsteps,” she said.
Ms Forkin said that her parents were active as volunteers in committees (her mother) and umpiring (her father), imparting “very fond memories of going to games on weekends and spending many hours down at the teeball and baseball club.”
Not only was Ms Forkin the first-ever girl in Western Australia to be named to the boys’ baseball team at age 14, but she would go on to play professionally in 2016 in the USA National Pro Fastpitch league for a team called The Dallas Charge.
She counts one of her biggest, most memorable victories as playing for the WA Open Women’s Softball Team in 2009 and 2010.
“We were the underdogs, and our team ended up winning the National Championship back-to-back years,” she said.
Now that she has retired, Ms Forkin has enjoyed mentoring and coaching the QLD Heat Open Women’s Softball Team over the last two years.
She currently teaches HPE and humanities (and also supports students with diverse learning needs) at Redcliffe State High School.
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