Redshirt senior pitcher Julie Sarratt could strike you out and then do your taxes.
And she could do them both before breakfast, too.
Sarratt, a CPA-in-training in the mornings and a standout on South Carolina’s softball team in the afternoons and evenings, has a taxing schedule carved out in her final season as a student-athlete.
She wakes up at 7 a.m. in order to get a morning workout in. Straight from the gym, she heads to class where she examines concepts like itemized deductions and tax credit.
Then, after what she describes as a “nice, big breakfast,” Sarratt dedicates the rest of the day to the game that infatuated since she was a child: softball.
“My brother always played and my dad played, so I grew up on a ball field,” Sarratt said. “I played baseball before I started softball. Pretty much as soon as I could pick up a bat, I was playing.”
But Sarratt said she knows her time as a competitive softball player is limited. In fact, this upcoming season will be her last, save for the possibility of playing for a company slow-pitch softball team in the future.
Despite seeing success in softball at every level of competition she has played, Sarratt has elected to hang up her cleats in favor of a full time accounting job that she will begin in October.
“It’s been something that has been really steady in my life, so it’s going to be hard to think in just a few months it will be over,” she said. “But, I feel like I’m to a point where I’m ready to give back to the game and maybe help the younger girls growing up. I definitely won’t be completely away from a ball field, but I just won’t be the one playing.”
The 2015 season will mark the final year of eligibility for Sarratt, who arrived on campus nearly five years ago. Sarratt tossed a no-hitter in her first appearance as a freshman for the Gamecocks in 2010, and also knocked in a run while going 2-for-4 in her debut.
She finished her freshman campaign with a 3.38 ERA while accumulating an 8-8 record. However, after the season, Sarratt was forced to undergo Tommy John surgery, which effectively ended her sophomore year before it even started.
But being forced to sit out a year turned out to be a blessing in disguise for the Gaffney, South Carolina native.
Sarratt used the year to get ahead in school and was ultimately able to graduate with her bachelor’s in accounting in December 2013. She is now working on her masters in accountancy in the taxation track.
The injury not only taught her lessons in rehabilitation, but lessons in overcoming mental adversity, too. Now, after sitting out a year, mental toughness is something others see as a strength for Sarratt, including teammate Ansley Ard.
“If you want to see someone who is ready to go no matter what, just look to Julie,” Ard said. “Her demeanor doesn’t change. I’m sure things frustrate her, but you would never be able to see it. It could be in the heat of the moment and Julie just has this ‘Let’s go get it’ face.”
Sarratt finished last season leading the Gamecocks in several pitching categories and compiled the 13th-lowest ERA (2.79) in the Southeastern Conference.
South Carolina’s season begins Friday against Longwood in Greenville, North Carolina. But Sarratt will have to juggle school with softball once again as she is starting her CPA exams now too.
But she said she knows she’s better for it. And when it comes to multitasking in the workplace, it will have nothing on her years as a student-athlete at South Carolina.
“Mentally, it has made me stronger — especially being here. It helped me kind of grow up and mature a little bit because I was so dedicated to softball all the time,” she said. “It made me make some choices to compromise on stuff, but I really think it molded me into who I am and has molded my mentality going into life.”