Are You on the Right Track?

When Richardson took her medical board exams at the end of her second year, to her dismay, she fell two points short of passing. She knew that she could press ahead -- and try to pass a retest in a month or two -- but faculty members encouraged her to think about repeating her second-year coursework instead. That wasn't a glamorous choice, but before long, she decided that it was the right choice.

This time, Richardson aced her courses. That cleared the way in 1991 for her to start third-year instruction, when med students get to see patients. She thrived -- and it was vindication for faculty members who had recommended her admission. "She had this absolutely infectious enthusiasm," recalls faculty member Steve Nettleton.

Meanwhile, Richardson figured out how to keep her pro-softball career alive. In the summer, she would wrap up medical school on Friday afternoons, catch a flight to New York and then drive up to Connecticut to take the field as a member of the Raybestos Brakettes. To save time, she would change into her uniform en route. Even then, she sometimes didn't arrive until the second inning of a game. But her coach at the Brakettes, Ralph Raymond, would get her into the lineup at once.

She had taken it for granted at the time, but now Richardson sees Raymond as having played a special role. He was the first in a series of mentors who really wanted her to succeed in both worlds. Yes, she was late to games, in a league where most other players had dull day jobs that they chose mainly because such work wouldn't interfere with softball. But instead of being annoyed at her tardiness, he was proud. "I remember Coach Raymond telling me: 'Dot, be different. Go and do something else with your life beyond softball. Don't let softball get in the way of your profession as a doctor,'" she recalls.

At first, there wasn't anyone comparable in Richardson's other world. Becoming a doctor was so intense that no one was about to give her any extra slack. But when she started her residency training at the University of Southern California in 1993, things changed. She had decided to specialize in orthopedics. Some of the faculty doctors either were former athletes themselves or had meaningful sports-medicine practices. They wouldn't let her cut corners, but they would help adjust her schedule so that she could remind the world what Dr. Shortstop could do with a bat as well as with a scalpel.

David Thordarson, head of the USC orthopedic-residency program, remembers the crucial moment coming a year before the 1996 Olympics, when softball for the first time would be an Olympic sport. USC gave Richardson a year off -- and told her to come back with a medal, if she could, in August 1996. "We had an extra resident that year, so it wasn't a burden on us," Thordarson recalls.

Richardson did even better. She hit the first home run in the opening round of the Atlanta Olympics and then hit the game-winning homer in the finals. When she came back to USC, she faced a mob scene of reporters, hospital workers, patients -- all wanting to see Dr. Dot and her gold medal. "She was surprisingly down-to-earth about it and eager to get back to work," Thordarson recalls.

Before long, though, the celebration was over. It was time for more tough choices. In early 1998, Richardson was doing an all day - all night rotation in the trauma unit just before tryouts for the U.S. national softball team. She had planned to finish at the hospital at 8 AM and then catch a short flight to San Diego for the tryouts. But just before her 24-hour shift ended, she realized that a patient with a broken leg and other serious internal injuries was doing poorly and was in danger of crashing. Should she stay or should she go?

"There wasn't any question in my mind," Richardson says. She ignored her official quitting time and stayed at the hospital until the patient was stabilized. She had missed her flight, but she decided that if she drove fast, she still could get to tryouts on time. Partway through the drive, she asked herself, Why am I doing this? "I decided that if I needed to pull over and sleep, it was just God's way of telling me, Enough," Richardson recalls.

At 12:30 PM, after 30 sleepless hours, Richardson made it to the tryouts. Picked once again for the U.S. national team, she decided to train afresh for the 2000 Olympics. By now, she was a half-generation older than many of the other top U.S. players. She was still a standout, still good enough to bat leadoff. But it was time for her to move over to second base and relinquish the shortstop position to a dazzling new player, 21-year-old Crystl Bustos.

At the Olympics in Sydney, Richardson turned in a bittersweet performance. She batted just .179 and had a dreadful preliminary-round game against Japan, making two 11th-inning errors that cost the United States the game. But she drove in the winning run in a medal-round, 1-0 victory against host Australia. Then, when the U.S. team played Japan again for the gold medal, she wheedled a walk to set up the game-winning run. At a press conference afterward, she said that she "cherished every second" of the Olympics.