How sunflowers worn by the Florida Gators inspired McNairy Central's softball team

SELMER — Katie Turner was watching a softball game on TV when she noticed the University of Florida softball team had something in their hair.

It was a decoration of sorts with a deep meaning behind it. Each Florida player wears a sunflower on Saturdays to honor Heather Braswell, who died of brain cancer in 2014 when she was 17-years-old.

More: Katie Turner pitches McNairy back to the state tournament. 

The sunflower was Braswell's favorite. 

Turner saw the sunflowers and was inspired. During McNairy Central’s postseason run to Murfreesboro for Spring Fling, you can see the sunflowers on each member of the Lady Bobcats’ team.

The meaning behind the sunflower is different for McNairy, but the message is that it takes a team to accomplish something great.

“I wanted to do (it) because whenever you see a sunflower, you don’t just see one,” Turner said. “You see all of them together and grow together, so I thought if you wore sunflowers together as a team, that it would remind everyone that we have to have each other in order to win a game.”

McNairy was already tossing around the idea of having something symbolic for the postseason. Some members of the team were wearing matching ribbons, but others on the team felt like it wasn’t enough.

Once Turner saw the sunflowers, she was hooked on the idea of using them. 

“Some of the seniors, this time it was Katie, just came up with sunflowers, and they spent all night one night cutting sunflowers down,” McNairy Central coach Mell Surratt said. "They made them from scratch. Just cutting some sunflowers down and with some other decorations. It’s just something you get caught up in tournament time and it’s a lot of fun.”

More: Spring Fling state tournament schedule.

It’s been a hit for everyone on the team. Most of them had no idea what they were going to use. Turner felt it was best to reveal them to the team while they were all together.

“I brought them out and said ‘I have a surprise for you guys,’” Turner said. “And they were so happy because we had talked about it before and they had no idea I was going to get them. So it feels pretty cool being able to surprise them.”

There were no sunflowers last season as the Lady Bobcats made it all the way to the Class AA state championship game.

During practice for each game in the postseason last season, the theme was crazy hats. Every player and member of the coaching staff wore different types of hats, like the Harry Potter sorting hat.  

More: Riverside baseball shows perseverance to reach Class AA state tournament.

It's all a part of trying to win and make something special happen.

“Last year we (went with) crazy hats,” Surratt said. “We came in one practice and it was nuts what we had. We anything from Harry Potter to elephants, it was crazy. We had birthday hats, we had 4th of July hats. We got sorting hats from Harry Potter. We had it all. And then this year it turned out to be sunflowers.”

Reach Luis Torres at ltorres1@jacksonsun.com or 731-425-9638 and follow him on Twitter @LFTorresIII.