Comment on this story

UT’s Abbott is a top collegiate softball pitcher

by John Clendenon

I have a middle-aged friend who thinks he can hit Monica Abbott.

You know the type: they play a little high school baseball, graduate to the slow-pitch beer leagues, and think women athletes can never measure up. Idiots.

Misguided macho men everywhere have a better shot at winning Powerball than getting a foul tip off Abbott, the 18-year-old Lady Vols’ pitching sensation from Salinas, Calif., who is putting Karen and Ralph Weekly’s softball program on the Southeastern Conference map.

Excepting the daily, which recognizes only UT football and basketball, the local media has noticed what’s going on at Tyson Park, where the Lady Vols wrap up regular-season SEC play this weekend against Ole Miss.

It’s hard not to notice the 6-3 lefty, who looks taller on the mound when she goes into that windmill delivery. When Abbott hits 70 on the radar gun from 43 feet, it’s the equivalent of a 100-mile-an-hour fastball. For right-handed hitters, Abbott’s pitches move at disturbing angles.

Even more troubling for opponents is Abbott’s performance in her freshman season. She leads the nation in strikeouts and is second in strikeouts per seven innings. She was one of only two freshmen nominated for USA Softball’s National Player of the Year Award. Imagine the stats in her senior season, after which she figures to be a strong candidate for the 2008 U.S. Olympic team.

Abbott is clearly the most valuable athlete on the UT campus, because a pitcher can dominate the sport. They’re like the Energizer bunny. In a typical weekend series, Abbott will start two games and come on as relief, if needed, in the others.

Another thing Abbott has done is help bring attention to a great sport played in a fun atmosphere. After the second inning at Tyson, free pizza is delivered to fans in the loudest section. And players clap for the other team during pre-game introductions. I believe it’s called good sportsmanship, and I recall reading about it in Stone Age chronicles.

Tickets are only four bucks, about the price of bottled water at Thompson-Boling. Creature comforts like chairback seats for fans and locker-room facilities for players will be added in a new stadium planned in time for the 2006 season. Monica’s present home turf is considered one of the two poorest softball facilities in the SEC.

All of this begs the question: why is Monica at UT, a college softball graveyard until this season? High school softball in California is easily the best in the country, and the cream usually gravitates to perennial powerhouse and defending national champion UCLA. The top two high school pitchers in the state last year were Lisa Dodd from San Diego and Abbott. Dodd is now UCLA’s No. 2 pitcher on a loaded roster.

“I saw (Abbott) pitch for the first time the fall of her junior year,” says co-head coach Karen Weekly, who calls Abbott’s pitches. “You’d go to games, and all the coaches behind the backstop were from the PAC-10. In the end, she wanted to blaze a trail. She knew if she went to UCLA and they won the College World Series, it would be because it’s UCLA, not her.”

Weekly also had a secret recruiting weapon in UT pitching coach Michelle Granger, one of the legends in the world of fast-pitch softball. A pitcher on the U.S. Olympic gold medal team in 1996, Granger was a four-time All-American at Cal-Berkeley, and still lives in Sacramento, not far from Salinas. Granger made one of UT’s two home visits to Abbott.

Abbott admits having Granger on board was a plus, but the clincher was Abbott’s official visit in the fall of 2002. It was the weekend of the Florida-UT game. You may recall the weather sucked. Didn’t matter.

“I saw myself fitting in then,” she said after a recent practice. “It’s a big thing to be an athlete here. The people are so supportive, and the facilities are amazing. And I loved the football weekend.”

The outgoing Abbott, who turns 19 July 28, has also been a perfect fit with her teammates on a young squad dominated by freshmen and sophomores.

In an age of over-hyped athletes, this is the morning line so far on Monica Abbott:

She’s all that.

April 29, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 18 © 2004 Metro Pulse