- Page High School senior and Stanford signee Adriana Callahan is a TSSAA softball standout and plans to pursue neuroscience.
- Callahan's interest in neuroscience began with a high school psychology course and dissecting a sheep brain.
- Callahan chose Stanford over Tennessee and Missouri to pursue her academic goals.
BRENTWOOD — Softball was Page senior Adriana Callahan’s first love.
Her dad, Ryan, played baseball collegiately at Ohio and had a stint with the Red Sox organization. As soon as his daughter was old enough, he gave her a store-bought plastic bat-and-ball set to see if she had the same gene.
Callahan had it, all right.
But Callahan, a Stanford softball signee, knew long before her senior TSSAA softball season and commitment to Stanford that she had another fascination — nothing too complicated, just the brain and its relation to the nervous system.
“I’ve known for a while that I want to work in neuroscience,” Callahan said. “(At Stanford), I’ll major in either human biology or symbolic systems and minor in neuroscience, then I’ll go on to do graduate school for neuroscience. I’ve always loved the brain and how it works with the body. It’s really interesting. It's very niche, but I've always been interested in it.”
It started with an AP psychology course her sophomore year. When Callahan dissected her first sheep brain in school, she was hooked.
“I was actually able to see it,” she said. “I loved learning about the intricacies.”
Callahan, a star centerfielder and National Fastpitch Coach Association All-American, scored a 35 on her ACT. Her at-bats aren't just moments in a game, they're data points. When asked about her solo home run on April 10 against Brentwood star Marina Mason, a Northwestern signee, Callahan broke down Mason’s tendencies and spent nearly a minute explaining the at-bat, one of the few successful ones on a night Mason struck out 24 batters.
Callahan’s homer helped lift Page to a 3-1 win that took 10 innings to secure, giving the Patriots a key District 10-4A victory.
“She’s always been a deep-thinking kid,” Callahan's dad said. “I knew from a young age she was all about the details. I’d sit with her and watch MLB or college games, and I’d point out the little things that happened and she just picked it up. I had a sense she would do something pretty special.”
Callahan is hitting .323 with 11 hits, six RBIs and three home runs through 10 games. She turned down offers from Tennessee and Missouri to pursue a difficult academic path in Palo Alto.
Neurologists can work in private practice, hospitals and teach professionally, among other paths. Callahan envisions herself working in research. Her dad hopes she'll change her mind and become a neurosurgeon, the first doctor in the family.
For now, she’s immersed in Page’s season. The Patriots (11-1-1) sit atop the district standings and are pushing for the program’s first TSSAA softball state tournament appearance since 1996.
“She has a softball IQ, and that’s something you can’t coach,” Page coach Travis Polk said. “Even if she struggles, her at-bats don’t change. (In a recent game), she had three or four ground-outs, not great at-bats. On the fourth, she belted one to right field about 260 feet.”
Tyler Palmateer covers high school sports for The Tennessean. Have a story idea for Tyler? Reach him at tpalmateer@tennessean.com and on the X platform, formerly Twitter, @tpalmateer83.
