“Yeah, I was pretty excited.”
Brynleigh Leitch isn’t your typical pitcher or shortstop on your local youth league softball team. To begin, pitchers and shortstops generally are the loudest players on the diamond. Always communicating, always engaging with their teammates. They are the pulse, sometimes being overly rambunctious. Leitch, on the other hand, could be perceived as quiet as a church mouse. She will speak up, but typically, her shy and bashful persona is what average bystanders will see.
What was not quiet about Leitch’s softball lifestyle was the journey she went on virtually, taking a bold leap and joining the Youth Athlete of the Year competition. A national recognition endeavor from NFL superstar Russell Wilson’s The3Brand, Leitch was one of thousands of athletes from around the country who had the chance to earn a $25,000 scholarship via The3Brand.
What the catch was, the athlete had to overcome some kind of physical or mental obstacle. In the case of Leitch, a fifth grader from West Noble Middle School, she has started living her life with juvenile diabetes. That became the talking point as the contest got underway earlier this summer.
“I was diagnosed type 1 diabetic on December 13, 2024,” wrote Leitch as part of her bio for the contest. “My mom put her while life on hold to make sure I was good. And makes sure I’m good every day of my life. She is my hero. She insures that I am able to be the best version of myself. Always. My coach, Chad Zink, pushed me to have the mindset “next play" - he says the game is a game of negatives - strikeouts and errors are inevitable - it’s how you come back from it - next play!”
Not just anyone could get into the contest, they had to be voted in by a coach or someone of influence in their athletic world. Leitch, who plays travel softball for the Indiana Fins, was also a softball all-star this past year and was a key cog for an all-star team that played in places like Florida in the past year or two. Her coaches felt like her softball talent and her battle with diabetes were noteworthy.
“The organization sent me an email with a questionnaire that I had to fill out about her,” started Bobbi Leitch, Brynleigh’s mom. “Once we got everything done, we had a dashboard that showed us who was voting and how the voting was going.
“I asked her if she wanted to do it or not, whether she wanted to do it,” continued Bobbi Leitch. “They advocate for things like cancer and stuff like that, and I told her, this could be a big platform for her to advocate for diabetes. It was fairly new for her, given she was just diagnosed in December, but the whole thing is crazy because we never imagined how many people would see this.”
Preliminary voting carried on for a few weeks in the summer, and Leitch had enough votes to lead her regional pod and advance to the next round. And the same happened the next wave of voting, Leitch led her pod and advanced, all the way to the national quarterfinals. Stacked against 63 other athletes with their own stories and fanbases full of momentum, Leitch finally hit that ‘strikeout’ that coach Zink warned could and does happen.
But not without some newfound thump in her personal lineup.
“Doing this contest, we got an email from Breakthrough about being an advocate,” Bobbi Leitch said. Breakthrough T1D is the reincarnation of JDRF, one of the leading juvenile diabetes support platforms in the country. “They wanted us to try to set up a team to do a walk in South Bend and they wanted to talk to Brynleigh, and, of course, she was so nervous. She doesn’t like to talk to groups of people. But she is an athlete and she’s learning about confidence on all levels. So this may be something we pursue sometime soon.”
True to form, Brynleigh, seated just inches from Bobbi’s shoulder during this conversation, had trouble finding words for the story she wants to tell about her journey. Needing maybe a minute to compose her thoughts, “Just be an athlete. Doesn’t matter what else is happening to you.”
It’s a confidence that Brynleigh is learning, and a new part of her overall game that she is adapting to, living with juvenile diabetes. Winning the money would have been amazing, but it’s safe to say, Brynleigh is learning new ways to win at the game of life.
For more information on the The3Brand, visit: 3brand.com
For more information on Breakthrough and their fight to cure type 1 diabetes, visit: breakthrought1d.org