Lisa FernÁndez

Even before she left UCLA, Fernández had already played in and won numerous international tournaments with the official USA softball team. She continued to do so after she was graduated, acquiring a 14-0 pitching record in international play by the time the first Olympic softball tournament ever was held in 1996, in Atlanta, Georgia. The American team as a whole had a record of 115-1 in the decade before those Olympics and was heavily favored to win the gold medal.

Fernández came within one out and a missed step of pitching the first perfect game in Olympic softball. Team USA was 5-0, the only undefeated team in round-robin play, and the United States was playing Australia in their sixth game. The game was scoreless in the first four innings. Then, in the fifth, American player Dani Tyler hit a ball over the fence. It should have been a home run, but the Australian team claimed that Tyler had failed to step on home plate and the umpire agreed. After nine scoreless innings (regulation is seven in Olympic softball), the tiebreaker rule, which allows each team to place a runner on second base at the beginning of their half of the inning, went into effect. In the top of the tenth the United States went up 1-0 on an unearned run. All Fernández had to do was strike out three Australian players to win. She struck out two and had two strikes on the last batter, Joanne Brown, when Brown hit the last pitch out of the park for a two-run homer and the win.

The United States went on to win the gold as expected, but the loss to Australia still rankled for Fernández, especially after someone (she suspects an Australian player) sent Fernández an anonymous postcard, which showed Brown celebrating her victory on the shoulders of her teammates and the message "See you in Japan," four months after the loss. Japan was where the 1998 world softball championships would be held. Fernández exorcised her demons there by beating Australia: She pitched a shutout and hit a home run herself in the first inning.