How Billie Andrews went from precocious child to Nebraska softball star

Both were former college athletes at Midland University. Barb was a basketball player while Chris ran track and played football, and they were raising their four children to have similar prowess.

Eschewing tee ball, the kids started hitting live pitching around age 4. Often it was Wiffle or tennis balls in their backyard. Other times it was at the fields near their house in Gretna, where Chris would hit them grounders and fly balls to track down “until they were panting.”

When Brooke joined a new team, Chris wanted to know: could Billie, the baby of the family at 6 years old, practice with the older girls? Working with Brooke’s team would be an opportunity for her to grow and improve her fundamentals, even if she wasn’t playing in any games. The arrangement lasted only a few weeks.

“A fourth of the way into the season, they asked if she could play,” Chris said, “because they said she was the fastest one on the team.”

From that point on, Billie was almost always the youngest player on any team, from playing a year or two up from her age group for most of her 11 years of travel ball with Nebraska Gold to starting four years at Gretna. Now in her third season at NU, she’s been the Huskers’ shortstop since she was a freshman.

Her path from a precocious child to a staple of Nebraska’s lineup and two-time All-Big Ten selection was fueled by an insatiable drive for perfection on the field, one she had to learn to direct and channel to unlock her full potential.

“I’ve grown with my mental and emotional game and just being able to use more than just my physical talent for the game,” she said. “I’m using my preparation and just different thoughts during the game just to prepare me for different situations and being more mentally tough when it comes to competition and dealing with the adversity and dealing with perseverance.”

Competition magnifies Andrews’ perfectionist tendencies. It draws something out of her that isn’t present in other parts of her life. She plays with a concentrated intensity, a combination of the fire she’s always possessed tempered by a perspective gained relatively recently of how to best use it.

As Nebraska’s leadoff hitter, she watches pitches go by at the plate as if conducting a science experiment. She leads the Huskers in walks and on-base percentage. A different side of her game takes over after she’s on base: the fast, instinctive and aggressive baserunner that’s twice scored from second on a grounder this conference season.

Away from the field, Andrews is introverted. She likes to draw and paint. Between the chalk lines, she’s more vocal, displaying the leadership qualities she slowly grew into as a kid.

“Getting to see older kids and how they reacted to adversity really helped her grow to be the leader that you see now at Nebraska,” said Larry Swift, who coached Andrews from age 7 to 18.

One of her last softball experiences before college came in 2020.

Bound for NU in a matter of weeks, she was in Oklahoma City for a double-elimination tournament with her travel team. After Nebraska Gold dropped a game early in the weekend, she addressed the team.

“We’re not done,” she said. “We’re gonna go for a while.”

Nebraska Gold ended up ninth out of around 80 teams.

“One of the fiercest competitors I’ve ever coached,” Swift said.

Growing up, those weekend tournaments ended with more competition back home. Up to 10 games weren’t enough, and she and Brooke would get home, find a friend in the neighborhood and play Pickle, a game involving a runner trapped between bases. Other times the sisters would pitch to each other in the backyard. The games lasted until dark. Sometimes they ended when one of them stormed into the house.

As obvious as Andrews’ talent was, a childhood spent with competition years older than her wasn’t conducive to her need to be flawless on the diamond. Whether she was on a 9U team at age 7 or 16 playing with 18-year-olds, her competition was more experienced, more developed. Before college, she hadn’t accepted the sheer amount of failure required to play softball.

For all the highs, like a three-homer game at a tournament in South Dakota — there were no fences; she just launched all three far enough over the outfielders’ heads to circle the bases — there was still frustration. Bad at-bats and misplays in the field stayed with her long after the game was over.

“Since she was 8 or 10, she thinks she should be batting 1.000,” Chris Andrews said.

In eighth grade, she attacked her job as manager of Gretna’s varsity team with the same tenacity as her play. She made sure everyone had the equipment they needed. Helmets and gloves were always accounted for. Bats had to be neatly lined up in the dugout.

“Every detail was done right with her as a manager, which sounds stupid, but it absolutely translated to what she does at the ballpark,” Gretna coach Bill Heard said. “It’s just who she is.”

Andrews committed to Nebraska that summer after a phone call and a single in-person meeting with coach Rhonda Revelle. Andrews had gone to a camp, then met in Revelle’s office along with her parents.

“What do you think?” her dad asked as they sat in the car outside the softball facility. Andrews liked the idea of staying close to home and had teammates who were already committed to Nebraska.

She got out of the car and walked back into Revelle’s office, committing almost a year before seeing her first varsity pitch.

A high school career and almost three years of college later, Andrews hangs onto the same perfectionist traits she had as a kid, but now they’re more focused. She doesn’t allow herself to think about softball from a big-picture perspective. Instead, every one of the countless plays she has to make or pitches she sees throughout a season is a self-contained challenge to be as good as she can in the moment.

That attitude is easier in theory than execution. She’s had to hone it in practice and concentrate on keeping her mindset tight and narrow, training her brain the same way she would a muscle.

“You can’t just go into a game thinking, ‘I’m gonna keep it one pitch at a time because I’ve done it before,’” she said. “You have to actually practice it.”

When Andrews hits by herself, every repetition is a reflection of her single-minded focus. “How am I going to make this one swing the perfect swing?”

Nothing matters for more than a few seconds at a time.

It points to another commonality in Andrews’ refined, evolved approach from her childhood: an ability to break down tasks in front of her while keeping her ultimate goal in mind. As a junior in high school, she tore her ACL chasing after a shallow pop fly. The left fielder called her off at the last moment and she planted awkwardly trying to get out of the way.

Through a recovery process filled with physical therapy and change-of-direction exercises, Andrews wanted to keep her swing intact. Since she couldn’t stand, she hit off a tee while sitting on a bucket, concentrating on her hands and her swing path, trying to prevent any rust from creeping in and affecting her after she recovered.

It was four years ago, but it was an early hint at what would become Andrews’ approach in college: concentrating on what’s in front of her, whether it’s her hands, in the cage or a single pitch on the field — the drops in the bucket that add up as Nebraska chases a Big Ten title.

“I’m playing for my teammates, and I don’t want to let them down,” she said. “So during the game, I think, like ‘What can I do to not let my teammates down?’ And ‘What can I do to make the game maybe a little bit less stressful or a little bit easier for my teammates?’ If I get a hit right now and I score a run, that’s helping the pitcher. That’s helping the defense. That’s helping the rest of the offense.

“And also I want to win.”