NORMAL, Ill. (U-WIRE) -- This fall, a small percentage of Illinois State students may plan to "Go Greek."

An even smaller amount will actually be taking a trip there.

Illinois State assistant softball coach Tina Kramos will be traveling to Greece in August as a member of the Greek softball team in the 2004 Summer Olympics.

Kramos just finished her fourth season with the Redbirds.

This year will mark the first time Greece has had a softball team compete in the Olympics.

Kramos has Greek heritage through her grandmother.

The rule to play on the Greek Olympic Team simply states the player must have Greek heritage within a grandparent and have Greek citizenship. Kramos is now a dual-citizen in Greece and the U.S.

"I was born and raised in the Greek Orthodox Church and everyone except my great grandmother in my family is Greek," Kramos said.

The coach of the Greek Olympic Team is Linda Wells.

Wells has coached at Arizona State for the last 13 years and has accumulated 819 wins as a collegiate coach.

Wells said Kramos will be playing first base for the Greek team.

"She makes all of the routine plays and she's certainly capable of making the outstanding plays as well," Wells said.

"She made a game-saving play at U.S. Cup in Hawaii from the second base position. She made a diving stop and then threw a runner out at home plate. That was a play that before I saw her make it, I did not know she was capable of making that kind of a play."

Just like we refer to the U.S. team as "America" or the "U.S.A.," Greek citizens refer to their team as "Hellas" instead of the Greeks or Greece's team.

The team held training camps in Dec. 2003 and Jan. 2004.

Then in March the team participated in a test event in Athens. The Greek team won all of its exhibition series games against Russia and the Czech Republic.

Before that, they competed last summer for the first time in the U.S.A. Cup in Hawaii.

"It was a pretty good start for us last summer, considering we've never had a team like this before," Wells said.

"We did quite well. In our first outing [the USA Cup] we upset Chinese Taipei by beating them 1-0 in eight innings. That was the first international win for Greece as a country. And our first time playing together as a team internationally."

Currently the inaugural Greek squad is again having success.

They are currently 13-0 in their pre-Athens tour.

Since Kramos is an assistant coach at ISU, Wells said having her on the team is like having another assistant coach on the playing field.

"She's a very good hitter and her hitting has improved dramatically in this past year," Wells said.

"But in addition to those physical skills, she herself is a coach. So she brings a lot experience and maturity. She's a coaches' player because she knows what to do as a player. She's always first in and last out. Picking up, looking after and taking care of. Just the consummate team player and she's such a joy to be around that it's always fun to be around her at practices and games. She's always looking to improve and to see any way that she can help the team. Whether that is through her own performance or helping someone else to get better."

Wells said Kramos not only had to get back into playing shape after graduating from Southwest Missouri State in 1995, but also had to recover from an injury suffered in Jan. 2003. Kramos had not played softball for three years, before this Olympic opportunity began.

"When this effort [the Greek Olympic Team] came along she wasn't really in playing shape," Wells said.

"She also had to struggle through a pretty bad groin pull [in Jan. 2003] and she just gutted it out and continued to work hard."

Wells said, not to make excuses, but the Greek team is by far the newest to the sport of softball.

"What the other world powers have had years to do, we're compressing it into a couple of years," Wells said. "Because of this it is really beneficial to have a player like Tina with us."

Wells said searching for to fit the dual prerequisite of being Greek and good at softball is a lot more challenging than recruiting high school athletes to play softball at ASU.

"It's been a fun adventure," Wells said.

Prior to building the Olympic Complex in Athens, Greece only had one softball field.

"I don't even know if it is even the quality of most of our recreational diamonds that we have here [in the U.S.]," Wells said.

"It is actually on an old U.S. military base in Greece where there was a baseball and softball diamond put in so the soldiers could play. Those were the only baseball and softball diamonds that existed before the venues were built for the Olympic Games."

Two of the 18 members of the team reside in Greece.

They are both converted athletes since softball is pretty much non-existent in Greece.

Joanna Bouziou is a former tennis player and outfielder Katerina Koutougkou is a track and field athlete.

In 1996 it was announced that Greece would host the 2004 Olympics. By 1997 the Greek Softball Federation was founded and then players like Bouziou and Koutougkou were some of the talent pool that were developed for the 2004 games.

The Greek Olympic Team played in Athens for the first time last summer and played a test event there in March.

"As it always is when you don't know much about a sport, as they started to watch it you could tell that they were starting to catch on -- learning when to cheer and picking out favorite players," Wells said.

Kramos thought the team was received well in Greece.

"The people in Greece really love their sport teams and they love going out and seeing different things," Kramos said.

"A lot of people don't understand exactly what softball is, but they ask questions and they come out and watch and I just think it's really exciting."

Kramos said she brings a lot of experience to the team.

"I think [being a coach] has also helped me play other positions that I am not used to playing," Kramos said.

"I actually was not a first baseman until I moved onto this team. It's helped me be more flexible."

The ISU assistant coach said her Redbird players have been supportive of the great opportunity that she has this summer.

"They inspire me because they work so hard for us every day," Kramos said. "I just hope I'll go out there and do well for them, my family and the country of Greece. We're all extremely excited about this opportunity and to represent Greece."

At ISU, Kramos mainly works with the Redbird outfielders.

Senior outfielder Lauren Bierwirth said she is glad her and her teammates inspired Kramos.

"That could very well be possible because we do work real hard because we have coaches like [Kramos] and Melinda [Fischer], who are pushing us because they want us to do well," Bierwirth said. "She probably works just as hard or harder because she wants to do well too."

Bierwirth, who had her own experience of playing against the U.S. Olympic Team last month, said Kramos never mentioned the Greek Olympic Team.

"She's more concerned with what is going on with Illinois State softball then herself," Bierwirth said.

"We were the one's asking her questions like, what the tryout was like, and everything like that."

"I think it's a great opportunity for her. How often do you get to say that you played in the Olympics?"

Bierwirth said her and her teammates will be keeping track of Kramos and the Greek softball team on TV and the Internet.

"She's a great player, but we never see her like that because we see her coaching us," Bierwirth said.

"She'll do great things [in Athens] because she does great things with us every single day. She teaches us knowledge that she has picked up."

Kramos said once the Olympic games end, her job as a Greek athlete will not.

"Our mission isn't going to end as soon as the games are over," Kramos said.

"We're still going to work and push for every young girl and boy for that matter, to know what softball is and play it. We're looking forward to forging a little path for other softball athletes in Greece. It is just very exciting to be a part of something and start a legacy and try to develop softball in Greece."

(C) 2004 The Daily Vidette via U-WIRE.