Sirens wail as an ambulance speeds toward Huntsville Hospital, a trauma patient being delivered for care. Inside the hospital, a team awaits to provide expert emergency care. On that team, albeit in the supporting cast, is a young college athlete whose preparation to be part of a life-saving team has come from the teamwork atmosphere of sports.
 
"Everyone just has their role and it's just a team environment," Shelby Booker said of the medical crew. "And I'm super drawn to that just because playing sports my whole life and being on a team my whole life."
 
Booker, graduate student outfielder for the UAH Chargers softball team and product of Madison's James Clemens High, works two days a week in the trauma center at Huntsville Hospital.
 
"I'm in a totally different world," she said. "I wake up at five in the morning, and I go in from seven to seven. And I'm just a part of the work world. And then on Wednesday, I'm just playing softball."
 
The team aspect even carries over to where she has a coach at the hospital "because I'm still in orientation. And we have to do performance reviews every week. One of the things that she emphasized was that I was able to take criticism and stuff and that like, I was always super thankful for the criticism. And I was like, Well, yeah, if you're ever met my actual coach…"
 
When Booker isn't with her hospital team helping save lives, she's on the diamond helping her team bring home hardware and setting milestones.
 
After the first weekend of April, Booker was tied with Kaylee Vaught with a team-high .407 batting average. She has 196 career runs scored, the most of any active player in all of Division II.
 
"I want to win the World Series" Booker stated, "I want to win a conference tournament, I want to win something with our team."
 
That will to win likely comes from being a part of a championship winning family, being the daughter of two-time National Championship winner, David Booker. David won the 1978 and 1979 Championships at Alabama, playing football for coach Paul W. "Bear" Bryant. 
 
Her mother, Delourdes, also had a competitive spirit as she was on the UAH dance team and skated in roller derby under the name "Bama Bruiser." Sister Sydney played softball on Alabama's 2016 College World Series team. (There's also sister Savannah, brother Dylan and their late brother Ryan, who was honored at the recent Military Appreciation Day.)
 
Shelby knew she wanted to play for UAH while she was in high school. She signed as soon as she was able, and hit the ground running for Charger softball. In her freshman season, she ranked second in the Gulf South Conference in runs and tenth in stolen bases. She had her best statistical year with the Chargers a year later when she finished second in batting average, runs, and hits. 
 
The next couple of years were more difficult as she had to balance softball and nursing school. Booker had to frequently miss practice and couldn't focus on softball. Through this, she still finished in the top ten for runs scored in the conference. Having to miss so much made softball less enjoyable for Booker though. This led to her staying for a fifth season.

"I just wanted to have another year where I could actually enjoy playing softball," she said.

-- Story written by Austin Edstrom