Brentwood senior Carissa Schmittou, granddaughter of former Nashville Sounds owner-founder Larry Schmittou, bats against RHS. She and cousin Nikki Ross, a Ravenwood senior, were born on the same day in the same hospital. (Photo by Peg Fredi)

Nashville Sounds founder's granddaughter stars for Lady Buins' softball team

By CAROL STUART
For Brentwood Home Page
Brentwood High School softball catcher Carissa Schmittou has a big name to live up to on the diamond in this area. She carries a name that’s pretty much synonymous with baseball in Nashville.

“She’s been around it her whole life … She grew up in Greer Stadium,” said her grandfather Larry Schmittou, a former Vanderbilt baseball coach and the man who brought professional baseball back to Nashville in 1978 when he started the Nashville Sounds.

Carissa as an infant with grandfather, Larry Schmittou, then the Sounds owner

Carissa’s dad Ron, a high school baseball pitcher in Texas when his father was executive vice president of the major-league Rangers, remembers playing Wiffle ball in the backyard with his oldest daughter. And then she moved to Crieve Hall softball, making all-stars in the first age group, and onto travel ball.

“She never got enough of it -- pitch after pitch after pitch. She’d have me out there,” Ron said. “ … She's very competitive -- that part’s definitely from the Schmittou side.”

Before he was owner of the Sounds and tried to bring major league baseball to Nashville – long before the NFL’s Titans and NHL’s Predators arrived – Larry Schmittou coached Vanderbilt to Southeastern Conference championships in 1973 and ’74.

He has 16 grandchildren, 11 of them girls, and Carissa and first cousin Nikki Ross were the first-born. They arrived on the same day at the same hospital 18 years ago, with Carissa born 12 hours after Ron’s sister Susan had Nikki at Baptist Hospital.

“Actually I was out being interviewed for president of the Houston Astros, and my daughter Susan was in labor so long. Nikki finally was born about 7 o’clock in the morning," Larry recalls. "They said they had an emergency call, and it was Shirley. The emergency was, ‘You're about to become grandfather No. 2.’ ”

Nikki,  who will study psychology at Abilene Christian next year, is now a senior at Brentwood’s crosstown rival Ravenwood where she is involved in theater. The family -- aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents -- all eat dinner ever Thursday at McDonald's in Cool Springs in a tradition started during those Nashville Sounds days.

Carissa, right, and Nikki

“It’s quite a rivalry every Thursday at McDonald’s,” Larry said about RHS vs. BHS talk. The Lady Bruins and Lady Raptors played for the 8th team this season Wednesday in the regional finals and both also have berths in Friday's sectional round.

“I know at first they were scared of the fireworks” at the Sounds games, Larry Schmittou remembers. “I’d have Nikki on one leg and Carissa on the other leg, and we’d sit way down the line so they wouldn't get scared.

“I put pictures on two of my Sounds tickets when they were babies, and they became heroes to the fans – they knew who they were.”

Carissa remembers being around the stadium, players and workers -- and getting introduced to fans when they'd stop and talk to Larry Schmittou. She believes the game is in her blood.

"I guess I just grew up as a baseball player basically," she said.

Ron, who was head of the ground crew at Texas A&M after deciding not to walk on with the baseball team, worked with his father in the Sounds organization for a long time. Larry Schmittou, who now runs 15 bowling alley-entertainment centers in several states, sold the Sounds in 1993.

“They've loved to go down and run the bases and play in the dirt just like all the little girls,” their granddad said. “They're still very, very close as far as friends and first cousins, and going to church camps.”

Of the male grandsons, Luke, plays football at Page, and Nikki’s brother Dalton is a musician. Daughter Debbie’s sons in Chicago, age 10 and 8, play soccer and baseball. And Nikki’s youngest brother, who is 7, is playing T-ball.

Carissa is the oldest of three girls, and her sister Claire is a freshman on the BHS team. Nikki’s youngest sister Rachel is a really good softball player already at just 8 years old.

Two other granddaughters are really good swimmers, at Independence, and Debbie’s daughter Hannah is a soccer player. Another granddaughter in Franklin just ran a 5K two weeks ago in 30 minutes at age 6.

Larry Schmittou said he hasn’t seen Carissa play as much as he’d like. He missed her 3-run home run in Tuesday’s regional semifinal victory against Overton because he had a business meeting.

He went to the Brentwood-Ravenwood winners bracket game in the District 11-AAA tournament last week, but it was suspended by storms and he didn’t make it back the next day.

“I'm not a softball expert, but I think she's a very good receiver,” Larry Schmittou said, asked to evaluate her skills. “I don't see passed balls at all. … Sometimes she hits off her front foot. She’s got a little power when she gets her pitch.

“I saw one game where she did excellent. She got tumbled blocking the plate. I could tell whoever coached her there did a good job. I try not to second-guess a coach because everybody second-guessed me when I coached. She's a pretty good little high school catcher.”

Carissa Schmittou is a senior catcher for BHS.

Carissa thinks it's cool that her granddad, who has been around baseball all her life, comes to her games.

"It's good to know our whole family has the same love for the sport," she said. "It's really nice to have that all in common."

Larry Schmittou’s kids all played youth league and most of them at Crieve Hall (where he says he witnessed his only ever unassisted triple play in his lifetime, by an 8-year-old).

 “I wasn't as near the player my daughter is,” Ron said. “I was at best a .200 hitter and that’s why they converted me to pitcher.”

Ron is accustomed to people walking up at the ballpark and asking about the name: Are you kin to Larry Schmittou? “I get it all the time. We're very proud to say he’s our dad, and I hope my kids say the same thing.”

But the name didn’t mean instant success on the ballfield, he said.

“She's had to fight for everything she's gotten,” her dad said. “She wasn't always the best player on the team, but I think she’s turning into one of the better players on the Brentwood team and helped them get to where they are. She's a great leader, and I think the other kids respect her.”

Carissa doesn't think the name Schmittou ever placed any pressure on her to perform at the plate or in the field. 

"I guess I wasn't really aware at a young age how much gravity my name had in that world. I never really felt  pressured to be outstanding or anything," she said. "If I loved it, I was able to play and if I ever wanted to quit, my dad was always willing to follow whatever I wanted to do."

During her career, the Lady Bruins have been to the sub-state ever year, but BHS hasn't made it past the Friday sectionals since her freshman year.

Ironically, Tuesday night’s 3-run blast last night came at the park where her softball career all started, Crieve Hall’s Whitfield Park, and on her first at-bat in the game.

"Just being able to know I was helping myself not end my softball career that night, it was a good feeling," she said.

Several players from her youth league games were on both the Overton and Brentwood teams, and some posed for a photo afterward.

"It was really weird being back there and remembering all the times I was learning to play and all that stuff," the BHS senior said.

Carissa, left, who picked Boston's Fenway Park as their family trip last year, with her parents and sisters Claire, a Lady Bruin freshman, and Carmen

"It's been really good to just remember all the good times I've had playing softball and how important it's been to me and how much I'm going to miss it once it's over."

Carissa began playing on a coach-pitch team when she was 6 years old. Ron, who also has coached his daughter, credits summer league coach Mike Logan with stressing fundamentals.

She started out as a third baseman but began taking catching lessons in middle school. But Carissa didn’t play catcher as a freshman and sophomore because Brentwood had Amy Buntin, now one of Notre Dame’s top hitters.

This past ofseason, she didn’t play travel ball and she plans to concentrate on her studies in pharmacy at Ole Miss instead of playing college softball.

“The thing I’m most proud of her is she’s made great grades,” her grandfather said. “She’s just an outstanding young lady.”

 “This week or next week will be her last official softball,” Ron said. “I've spent so many hours at hitting lessons, catching lessons and out in the backyard throwing and catching. It’s going to be sad.”