‘It’s not going to last forever.’ Parents of UCLA star show their support every game

It didn’t take long for Madilyn “Bubba” Nickles to make an impact for UCLA in this year’s College World Series.

The former Merced High star hit a home run her first time at-bat Thursday afternoon against Minnesota All-American pitcher Amber Fiser.

The ESPN television cameras quickly found Madilyn’s mom Natalie holding the home run ball in the stands with dad, Ted, sitting close by. Nickles jump-started the Bruins offense on their way to a 7-2 win over the Gophers.

It’s no surprise Natalie and Ted were again in the stands on Friday night to watch Nickles help No. 2 ranked UCLA defeat rival Arizona 6-2 to start out 2-0 at the CWS.

Nickles has started all 187 games coming into Sunday’s semifinal at the College World Series since arriving on the UCLA campus three years ago and her parents have been at every game.

“We have understanding bosses that give us the time off,” said Ted.

During the spring, every weekend they’re on the road somewhere to watch UCLA softball. They haven’t missed a fall game either.

This year alone, they’ve traveled to Hawaii, Cathedral City, Fullerton, Long Beach, Seattle, Northridge, Tempe, Arizona, Corvallis, Oregon, Palo Alto, Los Angeles and Oklahoma City for games.

“I think it’s super awesome that they’re able to come to all my games or make an effort to come to all the games,” Bubba said. “They’ve been my support system along the way and they are on this journey with me.”

A teacher at Merced High, Ted has spent time coaching softball, track and football. Natalie is a pharmacist in Atwater.

Ted’s colleagues at Merced High joked he would move to Los Angeles after Madilyn enrolled at UCLA.

Instead, they’ve made about 20 trips down to Los Angeles each year from their Atwater home.

“We bought a car during her sophomore year and we’ve already put 40,000 miles on it in two years,” Ted said. “My jeep has 140,000 miles on it because we used to take that thing everywhere. “

Natalie says the first thing she does when the UCLA softball schedule comes out in September is bring the schedule into work. She says her job has been great at working with her to allow her to make all the games.

When Madilyn was in high school, Natalie used to work a split shift to watch her games for Merced. She would open the pharmacy in the morning and take a break in the afternoon to watch the game. Then she’d return to work and work until the pharmacy closed.

“She’s told us, ‘I don’t think you have to be at every game. It’s OK if you miss a game. I know you’ll be rooting me on,’” Natalie said. “For us, it’s important to be there watching her. We’ve helped her get there. We’ve watched her work hard her whole life to get to this point. We want to see the fruits of her labor. We enjoy watching her play.”

Nickles, who was named the Gatorade National Player of the Year after her senior year at Merced, was named an All-American this year. The junior center fielder is hitting .389 with 17 home runs and 70 RBIs to go along with 62 runs as the Bruins leadoff hitter.

“When things are going good, you feel good for her,” Ted said. “When she’s not doing well you agonize with her, but there’s nothing you can do. It’s an amazing experience.”

Madilyn says the first people she seeks out after games are her parents.

“It’s great because they are my favorite people to see after games,” she said. “They are the first ones to tell me good job or give me a hug if I had a good game. The amount of fans changes each game, but it’s nice to have that consistent support system no matter what kind of game I had.”

Ted said Madilyn will usually find them in the crowd and give them a little wave.

The Nickles have also seen all of Madilyn’s games and tournaments during her summers with Team USA, including tournaments in Florida and Japan.

“The only time I missed was travel ball when I was at the Stanford hospital for 10 days because I had back surgery,” Ted said.

According to Ted, they’ll leave around lunch time on Friday for a weekend series in Los Angeles. The drive takes four and a half hours and they use Netflix to make the drives go by faster.

They’ll travel by plane to the Pac-12 schools out of state.

Natalie is in charge of booking flights and reserving hotel rooms. Ted says she has it down to a science.

“I stay on top of the flights,” Natalie said. “I know that x number of days before a trip is the best time to book the flight. When I see a good price that fits our schedule I’ll book our flights.

“We’ve got a lot of air miles, a lot of nights at the Hilton. We haven’t really cashed in on everything. Probably her senior year is when we’ll cash in all that stuff.”

When it comes times for booking flights and hotels for the College World Series, Natalie and the rest of the UCLA parents do it early, long before the team actually clinches a berth in Oklahoma City.

“We don’t talk about it because we don’t want to jinx it,” Natalie said. “I got a tip when Bub was a freshman from a senior parent. She told me to start looking at the rates early and when you see a good rate, go ahead and book it. With Southwest you can always change the dates if we don’t make it. There’s always going to be another trip.”

Fortunately, they haven’t had any major traveling mishaps over the years aside from a flat tire while driving a rental car during one trip home from Los Angeles. The flat tire resulted in a tow back to Merced when Ted discovered the rental car didn’t have a spare tire.

“We’ve had good luck with our luggage,” Ted said. “We’ve never lost anything. We pack light so we can carry our bags on the plane and don’t check anything in.”

According to Ted, watching their daughter play for UCLA is a dream come true. Especially watching her perform on college softball’s biggest stage at the College World Series.

“She’s doing something she loves.,” he said. “We know it’s going to come to an end. There will be a team when we’re sitting at home thinking ‘Now what?’ That’s why we do it, because it’s not going to last forever.”

This story was originally published June 1, 2019 at 5:23 PM.