24 Nebraskaland • October 2025
favorite part of deer hunting. "I love
being able to sit down outside in the
middle of nowhere, with no one but
my family knowing where I am."
When she moved to Norman for
college, that part of her life was no
longer there. Feeling that separation
during spring break her freshman
year — in between two-a-day softball
workouts — she got a tattoo: an
outline of her home state on her right
arm.
While grasping for any sort of
connection she could muster, pressure
and success at Oklahoma were
at an all-time high. "And with the
success," Jordy said, "there came more
expectation."
During her sophomore year, while
the rest of the athletic world was
singing her praises, she was once
again lost. She was hanging on every
word her coaches said and, believe it
or not, fearful of messing up and never
seeing the field again.
"That fall, I got very far away from
God," she said. "I had shame. Doubt.
Negative thoughts. Loneliness. My
prayer life had gone to a minimum. I
didn't have light, but I wasn't looking
for light either."
Going home was at the forefront of
her mind.
Home
Days after the Sooners won the
2023 national championship, Jordy
announced she was transferring to
Nebraska.
Home has so many layers for her.
There, she can listen to her dad tease
her about Remi, and remind herself to
watch a sunrise or sunset, just like she
has been doing for so many years.
It's where she can visit the same
pitching coach — Darren Dubsky —
she has had since she was 8 years old.
To this day, whenever she needs a few
words of encouragement, she knows
he will be there.
Playing for the Huskers, she is again
teammates with friends from her
childhood — Bella Bacon, Ava Kuszak
and others.
Nebraska is where she gets to be
part of the day-to-day life of her
family. Because the story of Jordy Bahl
has never been all about her.
Let's Go!
"Let's go!" Jordy screamed. Her body
rocked back and forth, and she was
biting her nails as if she lived and died
on every play.
Yet she was nowhere near a softball
field. And there weren't thousands of
fans living on every one of her swings.
Instead, she was living on every
dribble her brother, Bryson, then a
high school basketball player, took.
Bryson was in a dogfight on the
hardwood and Jordy, like all of the fans
packed in the arena, was holding her
breath with each three-pointer that
left her brother's hands.
Dave's Lab Jessie retrieves a rooster during a Bahl family pheasant hunt.
