While Janne was deep into her playing career, she also worked as a Criminal Investigation Branch detective with the SA Police Force.
Janne Stevens had a similarly commanding presence on the softball diamond to the one she used as a CIB detective with the SA Police Force.
Her voice was part of her aggressive armoury, delivering instructions to teammates with volume and clarity from the outfield.
Consistent with that strong presence was her powerful arm – and her power hitting.
Janne Stevens confesses that the consuming challenge of elite softball gave a reprieve from her work in which the harsh facts and effects of the criminal world could have otherwise dominated her life.
“Sometimes I pull up to West Beach straight from work, pulling on socks … and I have to step straight out onto the diamond to play. But then work suddenly feels a million miles away,” she described at the time.
Janne Stevens was player #73 for Australia. At age 18, she was part of Softball Australia’s intention at the time to reinvigorate its national team with an injection of youth.
Such was her impact with bat and in the outfield that selection to the 1974 World Softball Cup team followed, winning a prized bronze medal.
Inexplicably, she missed selection to the next World Cup in El Salvador but stamped herself as one of Australia’s leading players with selection to the 1982 World Cup in Taiwan and, then again at the age of 31, to the 1986 World Cup in NZ.
It was at these world championships that Janne Stevens accomplished her prized second bronze medal.
There has been an enormous softball career that sat behind her international career. Janne was an Open SA State player for 18 years including her final year as captain and six as vice-captain.
Janne Stevens, from the Sturt Softball Club, was inducted into the Softball Australia Hall of Fame in 1990 and Softball SA Hall of Fame in 2019.
