There was no music. There was no cheering.

The usual buzz of a Saturday afternoon softball crowd was willingly put on hold. The only sound was that of a stiff wind. Nobody moved or made a sound because it was a time to remember. It was her moment of silence.

Nov. 29, 2007, is a night the ISU softball team will never forget. March 29, 2008, is a day the team will always remember. Four months ago, the Cyclone family lost former teammate Fallon Johnson when she died of injuries sustained in a car accident. On Saturday, the Cyclones honored her memory.

Senior right fielder Kristy Olsen’s eyes welled with tears as she remembered the girl who had been her teammate in center field for three years.

“I mean, it is a day that I will never forget. At first you just don’t believe it, but after you hear it from a few people, it just starts you thinking and you think,” Olsen said.

She paused, choked with tears as she struggled to finish her thought.

“I am never going to look over to center field and see her playing next to me.”

Fallon was a four-year starter, playing in 198 games as a Cyclone and setting an example of how to play the game and live life. She stood small in sature at just 5 feet, 3 inches tall, but it was never about the stats with Johnson – it was about her ability to bring more to the team than anybody else.

“She always had a smile on her face, and she definitely brought that to everyone else. She brought her hustle to everyone else,” said center fielder Kelsey Kidwell. “So many people have said that her hustle and determination had nothing to do with her size, because when it came to her want to win she was big as can be, I guess.”

All the Fallon smiles in the world were of no use when it came time to deal with the shock of losing someone they never expected to lose. Yet it was something everyone on the team had to deal with.

“You just feel like a total loss – it’s just a waste, they got their whole life ahead of

them, and they just worked so hard getting ready for their life and just graduating,” said assistant coach Gary Hines.

“I saw her in the fall at a football game, and she was all happy and smiling and saying, ‘I got a job, and I’m doing what I want to do.’ And then it’s just gone. We don’t really ever think about it that much, that it just can end in a minute. It just shouldn’t to anybody that young.”

On the night the team found out, coach Stacy Gemeinhardt-Cesler and Senior Associate Athletic Director Calli Sanders were both out of town. Hines said the team brought in counselors from the university to help in the grieving process and help the team deal with the shock.

“You don’t expect it to be someone you know, and you don’t expect it to be one of your good friends, let alone one of your really good teammates, and that happened all in one for all of us,” Kidwell said. “It made a big impact on our team unity, and we realized that there are bigger things in life than the things people worry about every day. It made us closer to each other and realize more and more every day that just being there for each other is kind of the best you can ask from each other.”

The first night of talking about it was the first step in the healing process, and the team has since spent countless hours talking about their Fallon.

“We always talk about it and make sure that everybody is doing OK and how people are dealing with it,” Olsen said. “It has been a while, and you can go a long time without anything, and you are feeling fine, and then you just have one thing that reminds you of her and it’s just kind of a bad-day type of thing.”

The Cyclones wear her number, a constant reminder of their friend and teammate, on the right sides of their chests. But it isn’t so hard to live with when all the memories associated with Fallon are so positive.

“It has gotten better and better because we have so many things good to remember about her,” Kidwell said. “You can’t forget all the awesome times and memories that you had with her, and we had a lot of them and we are not going to forget them. It was really tough at first because we were losing someone like that, but at the same time we get to keep it with us forever and bring it along with us to every game.”

As tough as it has been for everyone on the team, every day, Kidwell, who is only a sophomore, faces the prospect running out to take the center field position Fallon held last year. On Saturday, she stood next to Courtney Wray in left field as the first pitch sailed into the catcher’s glove – center field was kept empty in tribute.

“I don’t feel like I am replacing her at all, because me and her were right there together last year, and she taught me so much and I learned more than I can really explain from her personality-wise and softball-wise,” Kidwell said.

“I feel like she really wouldn’t want anyone else there right now.”

Kidwell responded with a single and a double, in the first game of the doubleheader against Texas.

“And even the pitch without a center fielder, it was just we kind of like we knew she was there somehow, somewhere, and she was definitely smiling and appreciating what we were doing, and it was something we definitely wanted to do as a team, and it meant a lot to us, and we hope it meant a lot to everybody else too,” Kidwell said.

This was the last time Fallon Johnson will be honored publicly by the softball team, but the honor will be everlasting. Her No. 18 is painted in the outfield, in the middle of center field – right where she is supposed to be.