Jasmine Williams was a rising star for Oregon's softball team when the pandemic cut her season short. Nearly two years and one baby later, Williams picked up a bat again.
The junior had given birth four months earlier to her son, Zee Brysen. She had decided to return to the field by the next spring.
She and her husband, Zee Williams, started practicing softball at a local park. With their son in a stroller to the side, Zee began running Jasmine through drills. She realized she could barely lift her legs. She remembers falling over, hitting the grass hard.
"I don't even feel like myself," she told Zee. "I don't even know if I'd be able to do it."
Zee urged her to give herself grace. Did she forget she literally just had a baby? "As a woman and an athlete, you're not thinking that way. I just wanted to get into shape fast," she reflected.
This was not the first time Jasmine had stumbled and fallen on the road to figuring out becoming a mother and a wife while returning to herself and softball.
Yet just as he had every step of the way, Zee held out his hand to lift her back up.
Before her pregnancy, Jasmine Williams was Jasmine Sievers. As a freshman at Oregon, the shortstop earned first-team All-Pac-12, Pac-12 All-Freshman and Pac-12 All-Defensive honors. She led the team in doubles, extra-base hits and slugging percentage.
She also had risen to social media stardom, posting TikTok and Instagram dances with her teammates and showcasing her student-athlete lifestyle.
While at home in Mission Viejo, California, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the 20-year-old found out she was pregnant. Her then-boyfriend, Zee, played Division I football halfway across the country at Central Michigan.
After their baby boy was born in April 2021, Jasmine moved to Lansing, Michigan, to be with Zee,who had decided to end his football career to get a full-time job in insurance. The couple got married that September, and as the newlyweds adjusted to parenthood, they also adjusted to life together in a tiny apartment. The couple began planning for their future.
"Let's start a new journey," Zee told Jasmine. Jasmine had stayed involved with the Oregon team throughout her pregnancy and continued her classwork virtually. Although Jasmine had doubts about her return to the field, Zee encouraged her to return to Oregon to pursue softball, continuing to post on social media to share their family's story.
"He will give me so much credit, but if it wasn't for my husband, I wouldn't have come back and played at all," Williams said. "He saw something in me that I didn't see in myself."
Jasmine worked back into shape. At the beginning, she could only lift weights and walk on the treadmill. Around two months later, she could go to the batting cages every day. The family of three moved to Oregon, and Jasmine established herself as one of the fastest people on the team.
Jasmine credits Zee as the catalyst for everything.
"He's literally behind everything, just supporting me and helping me navigate through that part of life," she said. "He's so young, but he's so wise beyond his years with just how he communicates. I'm just like, 'Dude, how?'"
While Williams balanced new motherhood and her return to collegiate softball, she also had to manage online hate. Before her pregnancy, her fans showed her love and support. After she announced her pregnancy, over 30,000 people unfollowed her.
"It felt like everyone went against me. I was getting so many hate DMs," she said. "Moms were literally coming out saying I was like the worst influence for their kids now."
The online hate, along with the struggles of balancing being a mother, wife, student and softball player, would often bring Williams to tears. Guilt overwhelmed her as she traveled for games, Facetiming her 6-month-old son from the hotel.
For the best fit for her and her family, Williams decided to transfer. The same day she entered the NCAA Transfer Portal, University of Central Florida head coach Cindy Ball-Malone, also known as "Coach Bear," reached out.
Coach Bear had coached Williams on the U.S. team. At first, Coach Bear admits she judged Williams. She was a pretty, blond woman who made TikTok dancing videos. Was she serious about softball?
"I didn't know the gritty player she was until that tryout," the coach said. Soon, Coach Bear's feelings changed.
"You don't have favorites, but she is. She is one of my favorites. The reason why is she can just do anything you ask her to do. She's so athletic, she's so confident and she loves softball. She lives for it. But at the same time, that's not all there is to her."
Williams committed to UCF, and Coach Bear instantly welcomed Williams and her family. Although Coach Bear is 20 years older than Williams, she said Williams became her role model.
"Truth be told, she helped me more than I could have ever helped her. Her being able to (be a student-athlete, wife and mother) at such a young age, and she always shows up to the field on time, gets a 4.0 GPA and has this contagious presence, she always made me feel better because if she could do it, I should stop pouting and get to it."
"She feels like home to me," Coach Bear said.
Williams has benefited from their player-coach relationship, too.
"I got to come to her, not just as her player, but mom to mom," Williams said. "We got to have conversations so much deeper than softball, and we talked about our marriages. I felt so seen and heard."
On Williams' first day, her new teammates gave her son a UCF shirt and candy. Her teammates would dance and play with her son whenever they saw him. "He just felt like he was the king of the world," Williams recalled.
The love and support at UCF led Williams to become the best version of herself on the softball field.
"I got to just be free and be Jas," she said.
She earned a starting position for the Knights and helped her team win the 2023 All-American Athletics Conference tournament, being named to the All-AAC Second Team and All-AAC Tournament team. In UCF's first year in the Big 12 in 2024, Williams helped lead the Knights to the conference tournament quarterfinals.
Her teammate and friend Stormy Kotzelnick said Williams couples a high softball IQ with natural leadership and maturity.
"You could always count on her. Jasmine is a very loyal friend and is always there when you need her, just like on the field you can always count on her," Kotzelnick said.
"After long days at practice, we would both be exhausted, and she would leave the field to go pick up her son from school, have dinner ready and still show up every day ready to commit to us on the field," Kotzelnick added.
All of Williams' teammates praised her, saying, "You are literally superwoman."
"It was healing," Williams said.
Williams continued posting on social media. Early on, she would earn $50-$200 with name, image and likeness deals, which helped with the finances of raising a child. Currently, Williams boasts 130,000 followers on Instagram and works with brands like Amazon and CVS.
Through social media, Williams wants to show her reality: a young mother who continued her career as a student-athlete. A healthy relationship where both parents are present and happy.
She said she wants her followers to know, "All the noise doesn't even matter. If you want to go back and play sports, you can. Just because it's not the most conventional thing doesn't mean you can't be the one to make a difference."
Young mothers and athletes contact Williams over social media, thanking her for showing motherhood in a positive light.
"Sharing my story has helped a lot of people be less afraid or scared when they do find out they are pregnant," she said. "Seeing the DMs of people saying I help them or inspire them makes me know that everything I went through was worth it if I'm making a difference in someone else's life."
But when people give Williams credit, she redirects the praise back to her husband, too.
"If you want to be inspired by someone, be inspired by him. He is truly one in a million. We've always been on our own and had to figure out everything for ourselves. It's really him behind everything."
Now, Williams has graduated from UCF with degrees in sociology and interdisciplinary studies and a distinguished softball career. The family still lives in Florida, and they recently welcomed a daughter, Nova.
Looking back to the beginning of her pregnancy with her son, Williams said she knew even then that everything was happening how it should.
"Even if you're questioning — 'What am I doing? Should I have even come back? Why is this happening?' — you're going to figure it out.
"You're going to go on the path you're meant to be on."