By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            When Goose McGlaun got her student teaching assignment in the fall and saw that she was at Castleman Creek Elementary in the Midway school district, the Baylor softball player cringed at the thought.
            "I had no desire to do elementary," she said. "I just hadn't worked with younger kids in a long time. Even when I'm back home (in Humble, Texas), most of the kids I work with are in middle school, probably 12 and older. Like, this was young, young kids that I was seeing every day."
             And she absolutely loved it.
            "Honestly, I told my mentor at the end of the semester that I thought about getting my elementary certification just because I enjoyed it that much," said McGlaun, who graduated in December with an undergrad degree in health, kinesiology and leisure studies and a master's in sports pedagogy. "I loved them all, but kindergarten and 1^st were my favorite."
            Goose, who ranks sixth all-time on Baylor softball's career list for home runs (32) and RBI (126), clearly knocked this one out of the park.
            "From the minute she walked in, she was just so easy to get along with, and I never felt like she was an intern. She was just one of us," said Jalayne Rinewalt, the mentoring physical education teacher at Castleman Creek.
            In an email to Joe Alford, McGlaun's intern supervisor in the School of Education, Rinewalt wrote: "She didn't just raise the bar for any future intern, she became a part of our team that will be missed deeply."
            With Rinewalt out with COVID when school resumed in January, the children in her classes asked assistant PE teacher Gina Allred about her, "but they asked about Coach McGlaun over and over," she said.
            "There's just a softness about her when she's working with the kiddos that is a real strength for her," Rinewalt said. "She commands the classroom when she's teaching . . . but to also be able to have a softness with the elementary age and be patient, she was really good at that. Those kids were so sad at the end of the semester when she was gone. They were like, 'When is Coach McGlaun going to be back.'''
            Emily DeRatt, Baylor's Director of Academic Services and softball team advisor, said McGlaun is "going to be a fantastic teacher and coach one day, and she will continue to represent Baylor wherever she goes."
Even if she did go into it somewhat begrudgingly, McGlaun developed a bond with the students and staff at Castleman Creek and found a real niche working with the younger children in pre-K through 4^th grade.
            "I would always tell my mentor that I'm afraid when I go to softball I'm going to have this high-pitch voice still – what I call my 'kid language' – and I'm going to be around older people," McGlaun said. "But, she was like, 'No, you'll get used to it.'
"And then, just making sure I explained it well, because there were times where I felt like I could have explained something better in my lesson. Going into the next grade, I was like, 'OK, this time, I need to break this down more,' or 'I need to talk about this more.' I would say by the end of the semester, it was fine."
One thing McGlaun learned during the semester was how to use the green screen for warm-up videos and teaching virtually to all the students who were learning from home.
"Day One, I put her in front of the green screen to do a video," Rinewalt said. "I just looked that up the other day and was like, 'Aww, that was the first video.' She just fit right in and did it, no problem."
McGlaun and a group of the children were also part of a Kidz Bop video.
"We zoomed in with two of the Kidz Bop kids and sang along to their Christmas songs, promoting their album," she said. "We're all in this Kidz Bop music video, so it's pretty cool that I can tell my kids one day, 'Hey, your mom's in a Kidz Bop video!'''



With a demanding fall schedule that had McGlaun working at Castleman Creek from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, she had to try to squeeze in her weight workouts and softball practice when she could.
"I got where I would just work out before school, get my conditioning, running and lifting in on my own, and then go to school and go to practice," she said. "Saturdays were good, because I was able to be there for all of our intrasquads and see some live pitching on those days. It was a little stressful at times."
There were also some after-school throwing sessions with Rinewalt, a former softball player herself.
"I'm not sure how many interns can say they played catch with their mentor after school," McGlaun said. "There were some teachers that would see us walking out to the parking lot with our gloves and were like, 'Aww, that's so cute.'''
At the same time, how many mentor teachers can say they've played catch with a first-team All-Big 12 first baseman and one of the best power hitters in Baylor softball history?
"When I saw that she played softball, I got really excited," said Rinewalt, who showed a video of McGlaun's three-run homer that beat Arizona, 6-5, in the 2017 Super Regional and sent the Lady Bears to their fourth Women's College World Series. "And then, when I read her profile more closely, I was like, 'Oh, not only does she play softball, she's a beast. Suh-weet!'''
After a COVID-shortened 2020 season, McGlaun was one of four Baylor seniors who opted to return for the extra year of eligibility granted by the NCAA. The 18^th-ranked Lady Bears open the season Feb. 12-13 at the 35^th annual Louisiana Classics in Lafayette, La., before hosting tournaments at Getterman Stadium the last two weekends in February.
Without the stress of classes, McGlaun said she can "just focus on softball and have fun and really enjoy it, because who knows what's going to happen?"
"I may have an opportunity after this, but I may not" she said, "so I'm trying to really just give it my all so I can have no regrets when it's all over."
At some point during the season, Rinewalt is hoping to take a bunch of her students to a game at Getterman Stadium "and just have this one big Goose section. We will be the loudest and most obnoxious group out there."