Career Competitor Celebrates International Women’s Equality Day with US National Head Baseball Coach Veronica Alvarez

For the final episode of this series on Women changing the World, I welcome on Veronica Alvarez, the Head Coach for the women’s US National Baseball Team, a coach with the Oakland A’s, and also a Firefighter/Paramedic. Following a collegiate softball career, Veronica rediscovered the opportunity to play baseball and since then has been able to pursue the sport to a coaching level too. Her passion for the sport came from being born into it through her Cuban parents and upbringing within the city of Miami, FL. Veronica is clearly a woman changing the world considering how few women are represented as coaches within US men’s major sports; you realize quickly that this is someone who has had to work hard to get to where she is today, but her passion for what she does is the driving force behind her success.

We open up the interview gaining details on Veronica’s roles with both USA Women’s Baseball and the Oakland A’s (4:15), before then hearing about how she was born and raised into the sport down in Miami, Florida (5:43) by parents willing to let her pursue her passions. Veronica shares with us her experiences in and thoughts toward the sport of softball (7:10) and how she was able to rediscover the sport of baseball as an adult (10:00). Some of the great topics we discuss include; the women that were the trailblazers for the much greater group of women today that play baseball (14:00); how realistic a thought it was for a woman to one day coach in the MLB (17:00); the finite difference between coaching women and coaching men within the sport of baseball (21:47) and the pressure on women to take full advantage of the few opportunities they get in the sport (24:15); and what Veronica believes to be the potential for women everywhere today to make an impact and chase their true passions in life (34:32). Be sure to stick around the Career Competitor “Keys to Success” that summarize 3 great takeaways from the discussion (37:30)