Softball Star Jayda Coleman Shares Swimsuit Photo as "These Are the Best Days"

OU softball star Jayda Coleman is taking some time off from her intense training schedule to have fun with friends. Coleman, 21, shared pictures of herself and a group of a friends in bathing suits, enjoying a gigantic pool in Edmond, Oklahoma.  "These are the best days 🙂 Thank you to Luke and Becky Corbett for opening up their pool for us! WE LOVED IT :)," she captioned the post. Coleman has clearly earned her down time. "The person that's really impressed me power-wise is Jayda Coleman," says OU coach Patty Gasso. "You see her as like that soft slapper, she's swinging it. She's swinging it a la Tiare Jennings. Just big, hard, long shots." Here's how the college athlete stays on top of her game.

Coleman relied on strength training and protein to get stronger and faster. "I'm just staying in the weight room. Getting stronger," she says. "But not just lifting weights but eating the right food. A lot of protein, that kind of thing. I changed my swing just a little bit. But just trying to be the fastest I can be with my swing and the most comfortable I can be and hopefully it works out."

Coleman continued training and working out even when schools were closed during the pandemic. "I get up every weekday and do my running, ab workouts, stretching, sprints, throwing, etc," she says. "This part doesn't seem that weird to me, it's like what I would do in the summer to prepare for the summer softball season. I take the weekend off, which is unusual, because I would normally be playing every weekend."

Coleman loves being a leader and role model for younger players. "I was in that situation freshman year where I was playing infield literally my whole life," she says. "So I know their frustration sometimes is trying to get in rhythm of playing outfield. I feel like my leadership is when people come from the infield to the outfield, trying to help them and that transition."

Coleman thinks differently to other athletes, and this played a huge role in her success. "She was on all the time and she was always stealing and playing games with the catcher, so much that parents were yelling at her, 'You're cheating. Play the game the right way,'" coach Gasso says. "And she would delay steal, she would take off and stand right in the middle of the basepath and wait for them to do something and she'd always break and be safe the other way. She was just playing games. As we kind of talk in our team, one team's playing checkers, we're playing chess. Jayda was playing chess. Her mind thinks differently, works differently."

Coleman's competitive nature sets her apart, according to coach Gasso. "It's everything and more that I thought it would be. She has such a good eye for the ball, such a good hitter, good sense," Gasso says. "She likes to ask questions. She likes to give answers when we're here looking at video. She walks up with a different kind of confidence. Every time she comes to the plate, the attitude I can see is, 'There's no way you're beating me.' And when she has that mindset, you don't beat her. She is the most competitive athlete that I think I've ever seen."