Born in Houston in 1983, Cat had her first foray into sports by way of basketball, as Newsweek reports. She admitted via social media that the sport was her "first love."

"I was going to play in WNBA, but then pitching stole my heart, and my dreams were changed," she wrote on Instagram in April 2019.

"At 11, I asked for pitching lessons for my birthday present. When I told my dad pitching was what I wanted to do, the man made our driveway my pitching haven," she recalled. "After denting the garage, he found tarps to cover it ... When I got into [junior high] and sports made us have to pitch at night, he installed flood lights to allow us to see."

All the practice paid off for the left-handed three-time National Player of the Year who pitched for the national team from 2001 to 2010 and stood alongside Team USA when they took home the gold at the 2004 Games and finished in second place in 2008. 

After her 10-year career with the USA National Team, Cat retired from playing professionally in 2015 and was actually coaching at Texas State University when she heard the news that softball would be returning to the Olympics. She came out of retirement to be part of the Games, per Newsweek. The outlet also notes that the sport is unlikely to return for Paris 2024, meaning that Tokyo might very well be Cat's swan song.