BOB ETTINGER
To be a catcher, a softball player has to be willing to get dirty.
By far, it’s not a position a glamour girl would want to play.
But it is entirely possible to go from being that girl with dirt on her face to being a magazine cover model.
Just ask Aimee Soller.
“No, (it’s not a stretch to think I could go from being a catcher to being a cover girl), because even when I was an athlete, I always wore makeup,” Soller, a 2002 Conneaut graduate, joked. “I always tried to look my best, even with dirt all over my face.
“You’ve got to look good playing.”
And so the 25-year-old Soller has made the transition from being a catcher for the Spartans’ Division II state championship team in 2000 to being a cover girl for Hot Bike Baggers magazine, a publication devoted to the world of custom motorcycles.
“(Being a model as opposed to be being a catcher is) definitely different,” Soller, the daughter of David Soller and Becky Olmstead and the stepdaughter of Mike Olmstead, said. “I really do miss playing. But I do like this lifestyle, too. It fits me that I’ve done both.”
The approach
It’s a scene that gets repeated in nearly half of the movies the Lifetime Movie Network might show.
A girl, her boyfriend and some of their friends are enjoying a night out somewhere. A man approaches the 5-foot-10 girl with the offer of being a model, hands her a card and says to give him a call. You can guess all the dangerous plotlines that follow.
Of course, this is where fiction and reality separate from each other for Soller.
“It’s a funny story,” Soller, who lives in Concord, N.C., said. “My boyfriend (Matt Drautz) and a couple of friends went to a bike night. My friend and I were kind of sitting on a curb talking and this guy approached us.
“He said, ‘This may sound weird, but have you ever done any modeling?’ I said no and he asked me if I wanted to.”
Now, any girl in her right mind these days would have to question the motives of a guy that would use that line, right?
“I was a little skeptical at first,” Soller said. “But once I got to the photo shoot, it was legit and I went from there. It was pretty exciting.
“(When he approached us,) I made the joke to my girlfriend next to me that that was a really bad pick-up line just because it was random and awkward.
“I was really excited and glad I got to do it.”
In some ways, the opportunity to model fulfilled some of Soller’s wishes from childhood.
“As a young girl, you think of doing something like that,” she said. “I always thought about (modeling), but I never pursued it. I had other things to think about. My hope is that (this experience) may open some doors. I have another shoot this spring. I hope I have the chance to be on the cover again, or at least be in the same magazine.”
Model behavior
Soller has been known to watch a few model shows on television. But that doesn’t mean she really knew what she was doing at her photo shoot. And it didn’t help matters that she was posing on a motorcycle.
“I never posed on a bike,” Soller said. “At first, it was awkward. I listened to what (the photographer) wanted me to do. He did almost 500 pictures. My mouth hurt.
“After a few minutes, I was used to it and I did my own thing. At first, it was a little uncomfortable.”
At the beginning, Soller admits she was a little uncomfortable.
“I always watch TV and all the model shows,” she said. “I was a little self-conscious, but what I was wearing was really tasteful. It was nothing revealing. And the whole having my picture taken thing was pretty cool.”
Those television shows became a way for Soller to research just what a model should do and how one should act.
“I definitely watched a little more ‘America’s Next Top Model’ with Tyra Banks. I find myself looking at magazines, and before I would look at the clothes. Now, I focus on the poses. It’s different, I find myself doing those little things.”
She even practiced in front of her mirror before the shoot.
“I sure did,” Soller said.
What she was going to be wearing for the shoot was a concern for Soller in the early going. After all, she’s probably seen the Lifetime movies, too.
“That’s another funny story,” she said. “When (the photographer) was telling me he was looking for me to do the shoot, my first question was what was I going to be wearing. I have values and I don’t want to degrade myself. I had on jeans and a tank top when we first met.
“He said I could wear something like that.”
Once she was OK with the situation, she had another call to make.
“I called my mom and asked her if she’d be OK with it,” Soller said. “She asked what I’d be wearing. She thought it would be nice.”
While being photographed, the athlete in Soller found it’s way to the forefront.
“(The photographer) said to do a straight, serious face,” she said. “So I did. He said I looked too mean.
“I said, ‘Sorry, I was thinking back to my sports days.’ That kind of broke the ice. Everyone got a kick out of it.”
The cover girl
There are few times a call to your office that isn’t related to work can make you want to scream with joy. But Soller managed to get one of those calls following her first foray into modeling.
“Rick, the guy that did the shoot, called me at work and asked if I was sitting down,” Soller said. “I said, ‘No, should I be?’
“He told me I made the cover (for the December 2009 issue). I work at a therapeutic massage clinic, so I could yell and scream. But I couldn’t believe I could be on the cover of a magazine. I never thought I could.”
And the feeling of being a cover girl was every bit the same as when she was a state champion in softball or a two-time Northeastern Conference champion in basketball.
“How I felt when I found out I was on the cover of a magazine was the same as when we accomplished all of the things we’d done, especially in softball. It was the same feeling as with all those games we won, like with nationals (when the team from Conneaut placed third in the Junior League World Series in Kalamazoo, Mich.).
“I felt the same sort of sense of accomplishment as I did back in high school when we did so well.”
So far, Soller hasn’t been noticed while out in public from her work in the magazine, but she’s ready for it when she is.
“No, not yet (I haven’t been noticed),” she said. ”I walk the magazine aisles at stores to see if they have the magazine there. I’ve never had, ‘Oh! You’re the girl from the magazine!’ ”
But she wouldn’t deny she was a cover girl if the situation would arise.
“I would take full credit for it,” Soller said. “I don’t think (I’d be embarrassed). I would probably have the biggest smile on my face.”
There is a certain group of people she may want to keep her cover-girl persona away from, though. As the manager of a therapeutic massage clinic, she doesn’t exactly want her co-workers to know she’s also a model.
“Not everyone (at work) knows,” Soller said. “Being the boss, I don’t want anybody to know. The owners know. They made it a joke. They made me autograph the cover. They said, ‘You never know what it will be worth.’
“We all laughed. It was really comical. They think it’s kind of cool. They didn’t think of me differently.”
Career path
Soller is the first one to say, “I’m trying to get into (modeling).” She knows she’s just getting started.
But there are hopes this is just the beginning of something special, even if the path isn’t clear just yet.
“(If this will be a career), I’m not quite sure,” Soller said. “I hope it will open a few doors. The guy that did the shoot said if I’d go to Florida, it would open a lot of doors. I’m not sure I’d do that. My stability is here (in Concord). Hopefully, it will lead to something in the North Carolina area.”
Soller knows, though, that she’d have to at least consider a career in modeling if the opportunity came up.
“I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t be thinking about it,” she said. “It would be something I would have to think about. I live here (in Concord). My job and my boyfriend are here. My life is here. It would be really hard to think about with stuff like that.”
So, for now, Soller is thinking of only the immediate future.
“Yeah, I would say that I’m taking it one step at a time,” she said.
And the next step is a second photo shoot for Hot Bike Baggers.
“I’ll do something in the spring,” Soller said.
