Decent player. Watched her a lot with Mercado when I was honed in on Lefty and Hovermale. Don't think she is an "off the charts" get but at the same time some of these kids blossom far more than I expect and some don't. She's good enough she could be the former.
Tim used to follow Fisher prior to her commitment to UCLA. I'm not entirely sure that we're really in contention to get her. She wants to be an ace and that likely isn't going to occur here.
She never was on my list. Now, I suppose it is possible that at one time, before I created my list, that he followed her. But he drops kids from his "following" list when he knows they have no interest. And, if that is the case, it would have been well before getting close to Sept. 1 and the time to formally recruit.
Sucks for their current catcher Vic Valdez. Stuck it out with glasco and transferred over with him just to be replaced her senior year and promoted to bench player.
The Texas Tech money comes from the wife/husband (former owner) of Double Eagle Oil Company. They sold for a cool $4.1 Bil plus stock in Diamond Oil. Three days of interest covers the $2.2 Mil that they give to TT Softball. As far as I know Patrick and Brittanie are very small donors to SB. We are far outclassed by all the TX, OK power 5 schools as far as money. They could buy and sell us and and still have Billions. Think Love Truck Stops For OU plus the giant communication family Gaylord Family. Think EXXON Oil for UT plus 70% of all independent oil drillers and large business owners. Think every major Engineering firm in TX for aTm. Think FFE Transport Services, Stevens Trucking, and McLane Trucking plus 5 of the 10 largest attorney groups in Texas (remember the cigarette settlement? The big winners were 2 Baylor led firms).I could go on but I think you get the picture. We are fighting a very lopsided battle. As a writer on another site clearly puts it, "only God and the Longhorns have more money than Texas A&M".
All our money will go to Football and men’s Basketball, all other sports will be given these instructions from our AD - Just be competetive.
And we have one of the founders of NVDIA, Wertheim is worth 5 billion, one of the members of the Saudi royal family is an alum, a billionaire Swiss banker, among others. It’s just different at UF culturally, when they give it largely goes to academics.
Seems she made a big leap this season. "One of the biggest bats of the 2025 season has entered the portal. Ohio State catcher Jasmyn Burns will look for a new home. The sophomore had a breakout year for the Buckeyes hitting 25 home runs which ranks fourth in the nation and a single-season Big Ten and Ohio State program record. Burns also had a .455 batting average to go along with 75 hits and 51 runs while adding 72 RBIs on a 1.006 slugging percentage. Those numbers earned her NFCA First-Team All-American honors and Second Team All-American from Softball America.
Oragator - You are correct. Europeans and Asian graduates could care less about "American" sports or giving money for them, unless it is Men's Soccer, which we do not have! 1990 is also correct. I feel the days as an all everything school are coming to an end.
I don't get that mentality for sports like softball. I can kind of get it for sports where players are trying to show out for a specific skill set for the professional ranks, but does that happen for softball? The flip side is putting yourself out there, knowing you are not the best at a position (sure, compete for it, but no guarantees), and then what? How are you going to perform knowing that this isn't the best lineup for the team? How would you expect the coach to respond? It just doesn't make any sense to me. Go GATORS! ,WESGATORS
Agree but it’s not even about them. The domestic UF alums focus on it too. Chris Malachowsky, the NVDIA guy, gave 25 million (and got NVDIA to kick in another 25) to help turn UF into an AI hub. Wertheim has given over 50 million, mostly to engineering. Al Warrington gave over 100 million, all to the business school. We certainly have had generous sports guys like BHG, Condron, Hathcock etc…but the really big money goes to the academic side. I think UF alums have seen the academic rise and wanted to jump in to push it further as the sky seemed to be the limit. Sports were generally fine, outside of football where no one wanted to back a sinking ship. With recent academic events, we will see if sports are the beneficiary. Especially if they start to slip. But for schools like TTU, they can’t generate billions annually to compete with the big academic schools, so this is how they compete. Same with schools like LSU, Auburn Bama, even Ohio State (who has an academic inferiority complex to UM). It’s a game we can’t win because sports are those schools have, and with open money now, that’s where it will go. It’s the quickest way to pride and relevancy for them. Almost half of LSU’s last capital campaign went to sports for instance. U of Texas is the exception, they have insane cash to throw at both and do.
Thanks for the details. I used the term Patrick Mahomes & Company because I didn't know who the other donors were. NIL has created a whole new paradigm, for sure. Having he and his wife at the game, though, doing interviews and showing the merchandise they donated to the girls cannot help but raise interest and money for the program. I have read that Mahomes gave $5 million to the Texas Tech football program for facility upgrades and he has worked with Adidas to help provide endorsement deals for other TT sports, including softball, as well as signing 6 NIL deals with 6 TT athletes across 6 sports, one of which is NiJaree Canady.
Sorry Ocala, I forgot. I thought I was responding to what I thought was a new post. My excuse is late night and a 76 year old brain.
Just thought of this after watching the OKC Finals. Glasco is in a perfect win-win situation and is in the most envious coaching position: He came to a team that did nothing for years, softball was an afterthought at Tech. He gets a multi-million dollar budget to buy the pieces he needs to field a competitive team. He is put in an idea position to succeed and he gets all the way to OKC Finals and was 1 intention ball 4 pitch away from winning. Now his team has even more recognition and he has players waiting to enter the portal and join his team. Now if I’m CTW, I’d think, hell, I’d like to be in that position. So @notexgator , is there another TX/OK school that could use the Tech model and do the same thing? What if Wichita State called CTW and said “Let’s build the program the Tech Way” and we want you to be the builder, would he go? OR Now that the House settlement has passed and there is 20.5 million to spend, maybe a school that has no football or men’s basketball team of note say, hey let’s build a competitive softball program. We’ll spend 2 million of our 20.5 to fully fund a softball program and we want a winning coach at the helm. JMU or Cal State Fullerton calls CTW and asks him if he’d be interested, you don’t think he’d seriously consider taking it? At his/our age, a job with no expectations and best of all, no stress? Gimme a break, you be a fool not to consider either scenarios at the very least. If CTW is actually done here (And I really hope not), this is the best job market to be in if you’re a good/great softball coach. All the best CTW and thanks for the program you made and left us.
Yep. She "blossomed". Had not really paid any attention to her at OSU. As I said, she was more than decent with Mercado but I didn't really expect this type of jump.
I met Ben Hill Griffin III years ago when the company I worked for was looking for a GVL location. As you might expect, he owns a lot of real estate, including in GVL. It was a walk-thru at one of his buildings we were considering. During the walk-thru, I tried to engage him in small talk about the Griffin family's ties to Gator football. He didn't seem nearly as emotionally attached to UF as I'd guess his Dad and Grandfather were. Admittedly, a one off meeting. Odd none the less. An extension of the BHG III story. The long history of UF may actually work against them. I read once about "the rule of three" regarding inherited wealth. The first generation (BHG) makes the fortune, the second generation (BHG Jr.) embraces the first generation's philanthrope, the third generation (BHG III) has no such ties and doesn't. There are exceptions to this theory. But they are exceptions. Best I can remember. Almost every heavy donor mentioned here specific to SB has been first or second generation wealth. Or the wife of same, who played softball. To think of it in familiar context. The great Gator pitcher Stacey Nelson contributed enough to the KSP renovation to have her name on the Plaza wall. Odds are her grandkids wouldn't have.
She wasnt even a ace at UCLA this year. She'd be right in the mix with Keagen and Red. With Ava as our closer. OU fans have said shes not a culture fit there or with Oregon for whatever thats worth. Theres apparently something going on at UCLA. Rumors of then not being happy with the pitching coaching. Who knows though. I think its probably more the fact that the exposure there is horrible compared to the SEC, ACC, and Big 12. And the travel schedule is horrible. I think there's many places she could end up.
