Jackie Vasquez Theodorakis made her name by running 60 feet faster than almost anyone in college softball. She was a slapper. Tap the ball toward third base and — whoosh — base hit.
In 2008, she hit .418 and was a third-team All-American.
She was so adept at slap-hitting that when Arizona State won the 2008 Women’s College World Series, Theodorakis made the all-tournament team.
“If one of my teammates had told me that someday I’d run 26 miles, I would have said they were insane,” she said Tuesday, laughing at the improbability of it.
On Monday, Theodorakis ran 26.2 miles in the Boston Marathon. It was good and bad, although “bad” is probably an exaggeration.
Because Theodorakis, a former captain of the Catalina Foothills High School softball and basketball teams, has such high standards — she had a 3.65 GPA at Arizona State, was the Pac-12’s softball Scholar-Athlete of the Year and helped the Sun Devils smash a 17-year losing streak to Arizona at Hillenbrand Stadium — hitting infamous Heartbreak Hill at mile 20 of the Boston Marathon had a dual meaning.
She knew she would not be able to run a personal best in the Boston Marathon, which is the Augusta National of marathons. It’s hard times two. It’s not just 26.2 miles — it’s unusually hilly, and on Monday it was also unseasonably warm in Boston, which reached 84 degrees a day earlier.
Theodorakis finished in 3 hours, 58 minutes. Her fastest of four career marathons is 3:32.
“The athlete in me hoped for a personal best, but life happens,” she said. “In a way, it was literally heartbreaking. In another way, it was almost surreal. It was my second-greatest athletic achievement. It was very, very humbling.”
More than 15,000 people ran in Monday’s Boston Marathon, but few have a backstory to match hers.
Do you know she plans to play softball for Team Mexico in the 2020 Olympics?
Or that she had a baby girl, Olivia, in December 2013, and successfully ran her first marathon less than a year later?
Or that she and her husband, Tom Theodorakis, an associate athletic director for development at the UA, are among the few couples in history to both win NCAA championships?
Tom was a high school All-American lacrosse player in upstate New York and was part of the 2004 Syracuse team when the Orange won NCAA championship. Four years later, Jackie’s Sun Devils beat Texas A&M to win the NCAA softball title.
They hoped to run the Boston Marathon together, but after two ACL surgeries, Tom scaled back a bit and limits himself to half-marathons.
The lacrosse player from Syracuse and the softball player from ASU were introduced by former Arizona softball standout Callista Balko. Small world, huh?
After leaving ASU and returning to Tucson where she is employed by Gabriel’s Angels, a nonprofit for at-risk children, Jackie got on with a life than didn’t seem to have time for sports. But once she married Tom, and Olivia was born, sports found them.
They run whenever they find the time, at 6 a.m., or 6 p.m., often by putting Olivia in a stroller and running six or eight miles on the Rillito River bike path. One day a week, Jackie runs a longer race, from 10 to 15 miles.
And then, suddenly, softball came back in her life.
About a year ago, former ASU All-American pitcher Dallas Escobedo phoned and asked if Jackie would be interested in trying out for the Mexican national softball team, with a goal of playing in the 2020 Olympics.
Because Jackie’s mother, Blanca, was born in Mexico, Jackie claims dual citizenship.
“I hadn’t played softball since 2010, but I might be in better shape now than I was at ASU,” she said. “I phoned the head coach and he asked me to send him my college statistics. He emailed me back about five minutes later and said, ‘We’re interested; we can work with this.’”
Jackie attended Team Mexico’s summer camp in Tijuana and made the club. She will make her competitive return to softball July 5-9 at the World Cup in Oklahoma City, followed later that month by the Canadian Cup in Vancouver and the Pan American Games in August.
If it works out, Jackie’s return to softball would be one of the most-compelling comebacks in any sport.
To prepare for world-class softball pitching, Jackie has worked with UA assistant baseball coach Sergio Brown, a native of Douglas.
“I’m going to see where this takes me,” she said. “I’m definitely a smarter softball player now than I was 10 years ago. I’m 30, I’ve lost a step, but I’ve been working softball camps and clinics with Callista, so I’ve stayed close to the game. I think it’s like riding a bike. I’m not really a slapper any more, I’m actually more of a power hitter. Isn’t that crazy?”
This is one time that crazy means good.
