Mavericks catcher makes names for herself with viral 'instructional' softball videos

MANKATO, Minn. (FOX 9) - The Minnesota State softball team fell just shy of making the NCAA Tournament this year, but one of their players is getting national attention and beyond.

Maverick softball catcher Cori Kennedy made a series of parody instructional videos and they went viral. It started as a family joke, but then she posted it online.

“I put it on my Instagram story just for my friends you know, to have a couple laughs,” said Kennedy. “Our graduate assistant coach said, ‘You need to put this on Twitter now, this is funny.’ So I did and it blew up overnight. I mean to bed and had like 45,000 views, but when I woke up it was close to a million and I was like this is insane.”

Then she got her teammates involved for the next one in which she jokingly shows the best way to run at a pitcher for a slap hit. Instead of just taking a few steps in the batter’s box, Kennedy takes off running in the slap stance across a gym, through a snow pile, across the street and more.

“I sweat a lot for that one,” said Kennedy. “I had to run a lot, there were a lot of takes. I mean the hardest one was when I had to run down the spiral staircase because the first one I did I was like, ‘Okay I don’t want to fall’ and my teammates go, ‘You’re going way too slow, you’ve got to pick up the speed.’”

Kennedy graduated last weekend and because of all of the success from her videos she landed a TV gig with the new National Pro Fastpitch league.

“The cool thing is it reached out to so many people and then NPF contacted me and they say, ‘Hey we want you to come commentate and broadcast for us?’ and I was like no way this is insane,” she said.

Kennedy says the most enjoyable part has been seeing how the softball world has responded to her videos.

“There’s been girls who have been doing it in games and sending me footage, which is not recommended to do in a game, but some of them have and they’ve been hitting home runs, which is crazy because swinging like that is really hard,” said Kennedy. “And it is a joke not to be taken seriously, but they’ve been taking it to the next level and teams have been remaking my videos and I love it because I think it adds that fun aspect to softball you know and it’s bringing girls together.”