This story is so cool I hijacked from facebook.
A girls’ softball team in Oklahoma is showing that there are many ways to be a Mighty Girl! The end-of-season photo for “The Freeze”, featuring the 4- and 5-year-old players in eye black and Elsa dresses, has gone viral this week. Photographer Betsy Gregory, the mother of Avery, the team’s catcher, says she hopes the picture will inspire little girls everywhere with the knowledge that “I can dress up but I can still be tough.”Gregory and her fellow parents came up with the idea of a “Frozen”-themed softball team as a way to get their daughters interested in the sport. The girls were all taking a dance class together, and they wanted to encourage the girls to give softball a try, explaining: “As a mom, that’s what we want our girls to feel the power to do, to step up and try anything.” The team name began as a joke, she added, “We joked and said let’s be the ‘Sparkling Elsa’s’ and then one mom said, ‘Let’s be ‘The Freeze,’ and that stuck.”
During the season, the girls wore turquoise shirts, white pants and turquoise-and-white socks -– the colors worn by Elsa in the movie, “Frozen”. When it came time for team photos, Gregory says she thought it would be fun to “put the girls in their Elsa dresses and have them make tough faces.” The photo soon went viral and Gregory is delighted that it has reached so many people: “What started as a little spark of imagination has turned into something much greater. What a great memory this will be for these girls many years down the road!”
Gregory hopes that girls who see the photos will remember that “it is really OK to try anything” and that you don’t have to choose between “being a princess and getting dirty.” And, she hopes more parents will be inspired to encourage their girls to try new things, even ones quite different from their usual interests: “With little kids we have to expose them to everything so we can figure out what they’re good at and passionate about.” View more photos of “The Freeze” on Buzzfeed or check out Gregory’s Facebook page at Betsy Gregory Photography.For more books, toys, and t-shirts celebrating female ballplayers, check out our blog post, “Play Ball Like A Mighty Girl!: Top Picks for Baseball & Softball Lovers,
