WCWS 2024: Texas, Oklahoma and the future of softball

OKLAHOMA CITY — In 1982, Dot Richardson led UCLA to college softball's first national championship. Those Bruins launched the Pac-10's domination of the sport. UCLA or Arizona won every national title from 1988 to 1997 until another West Coast power, Fresno State, finally broke the streak. Cal, Arizona State and Washington later added national championships to the Pac-10's trophy case.

“There was a dominance in the Pac-10 that sparked the growth of softball,” said Richardson, a Bruins shortstop named NCAA Player of the Decade in the 1980s. “It was an example for other conferences to compete with.” .

This Women's College World Series officially ended that era and ushered in another: the arrival of the SEC's Death Star, poised to dominate softball and the WCWS for years to come.

“He [Pac] Actually, 12 started in softball,” said Oklahoma's Patty Gasso, who has coached the Sooners to seven national titles this millennium. “It was always UCLA and Arizona. They are the springboards that led to other teams. … The idea of ​​them disbanding the Pac-12 is really hard for me to fathom because of the history of softball. …I don't know, I'm sentimental about it.”

Due to football-driven conference realignment, the Pac-12 played its final softball game on Monday, when Texas eliminated Stanford.

Top-ranked Texas will face Oklahoma for the national championship starting Wednesday (8 p.m. ET, ESPN/ESPN+) in a best-of-three series. The second-seeded Sooners will be seeking an unprecedented fourth consecutive national championship.

Next season, Oklahoma and Texas will play in the SEC, which, for the fourth time since 2017, saw all 13 programs competing in softball qualify for the NCAA postseason. SEC programs also had eight of the top 16 finishers, not including the Sooners and Longhorns.

The latest round of conference realignment gutted the Pac-12 and positioned the SEC to reign over softball, potentially unlike any single-sport conference.

“To be honest, it's heartbreaking,” said Arizona interim athletic director Mike Candrea, who won eight national titles and 1,674 games with the Wildcats to become the sport's winningest coach. “We now live in a world that is completely different.”

Both Richardson and Candrea saw the change coming long before Texas and Oklahoma joined the Big 12 for the SEC. Over the years, blue-chip recruits have gradually migrated from California to rising programs like Oklahoma. The Sooners have eight California players on their roster, including All-American senior shortstop Tiare Jennings (San Pedro, Calif.), who ranks third in NCAA history with 97 career home runs.

Following its three consecutive national titles, Oklahoma also opened Love's Field this spring. The $48 million stadium seats 4,200 and features a 10,000-square-foot indoor training center. Many of softball's other major facilities now reside in the SEC.

Meanwhile, UCLA, despite its 12 national championships, plays in a stadium that hasn't been renovated since 2005 and seats only 1,300.

“A Pac-12 coaching staff told me it's not that easy anymore, because [recruits] Look at the facilities and what do I get? If you look at NIL, what do I get?” said Richardson, now Liberty's head coach, who added that the SEC began investing seriously in softball after Michigan became the first program east of the Mississippi River to win the title. national in 2005. “You started to see the SEC start to elevate its development and facilities. Then, a lot of athletes from California, Arizona and the west coast started coming east AND they came east because of the commitment to the sport of softball. “both for the facilities and for the salaries of the staff, the coaching staff and the commitment that was being made.”

Recruiting for former Pac-12 schools won't get any easier. UCLA, Oregon and Washington will have to convince players to play in the cold Big Ten, with road trips that together add up to thousands of miles. Pac-12 players, like Paige Sinicki, the first Gold Glove winner in Oregon history, have already objected to this situation.

I chose to play in a high level softball conference where being close to home would allow my parents to come watch my games. It's unfortunate to know that my senior year I will be playing at New Jersey-Rutgers and other schools on the East Coast.

– Paige Sinicki (@paige_sinicki) August 4, 2023

“To see it come to this point now,” Candrea said, “is really kind of sad.”

Cat Osterman, a former three-time national player of the year, still sees hope in non-SEC programs. But the former Texas great, who still holds school records for career wins (136), ERA (0.51), shutouts (85) and no-hitters (20), agreed that the SEC will be a softball juggernaut.

“It's still possible that other programs can build and compete,” Osterman said, highlighting Oklahoma State, which has entered the WCWS five straight years among the Big 12. “But obviously, the SEC is going to be even stronger.” with Texas and OU.”

Alabama coach Patrick Murphy, whose Crimson Tide captured the SEC's first softball national championship in 2012, said he “doesn't even want to think” about how difficult the SEC schedule will be in the future. Texas coach Mike White, a New Zealand native who began his career at Oregon, said the new SEC is going to be “very, very difficult,” adding that he can “see having 15 losses in that conference and still doing it pretty bad.” good”.

A packed conference will not only be a challenge for the teams but also for the NCAA selection committee.

“We tried to rule out conference stuff when we started seeding teams and looked at that full year of work,” said Kurt McGuffin, Tennessee-Martin's recruiting chair and athletic director. “But the SEC definitely offers great teams.”

McGuffin admitted that the SEC's impending dominance in softball is rivaled only by the Big Ten's current prowess in women's volleyball, although Texas has won the last two national titles in that sport. McGuffin said he envisions programs from other conferences lining up to take on SEC opponents to bolster their resumes for the committee.

“It goes back to some of our criteria, top 25 wins, top 50 wins, the SEC will get a lot of those wins in their conference,” he said. “But we still look at the strength of the non-conference schedule. We still want to see you play against people early in the season who build up. If you're not in the SEC, I think playing against quality teams in the non-conference schedule, play against the SEC “Teams, maybe not Oklahoma, Texas or Tennessee, but maybe even the SEC teams in the middle of the pack, can help their non-conference schedule.”

UCLA coach Kelly Inouye-Perez, who won three national championships playing for the Bruins and coached them to two more in 2010 and 2019, remembered when the Pac-12 was viewed that way not long ago.

“When you think about the greatest championships that have been played in history, it's the Pac-12,” he said. “That's a big reason why so many people wanted to compete in the Pac.”

With the rise of the Pac-12 and investment in softball in the SEC, it has become the new standard for the sport.

Florida coach Tim Walton, whose Gators won back-to-back national championships in 2013 and 2014 and were one inning away from defeating Oklahoma and playing for another title this week, noted that the SEC was already the RPI conference. rating) higher. without the Sooners and Longhorns.

“The SEC is different… The travel, the fans, the passion, the amount of fans. It's just different,” Walton said. “I'm excited that [Oklahoma and Texas] They are coming to the SEC. I think they are going to expand the recruiting bases for their programs and ours, the television coverage and the popularity. …Now we are going to be the number one plus/star RPI conference. It's going to be a challenge. A challenge awaits us. A challenge awaits them.”

Stop us if you've heard this before, but softball also means more. And Richardson, who faces many of the conference's schools each year since Liberty, sees it up close.

“I think the SEC,” he said, “is trying to dominate all sports.”