PRESS.
“LIFE AFTER GOLD”
USA Softball
USA Softball holds 40th Annual Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in Oklahoma City
The Annual Meeting kicks off on Saturday as USA Softball will honor nine individuals with the 40th Annual Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony and Banquet recognizing the following inductees: Phil Gutierrez (Meritorious Service), Lovieanne Jung (Fast Pitch Player), Terry Muck (Fast Pitch Player), Bill Pfeiffer (Fast Pitch Player), Doug Roberson (Slow Pitch Player), Carl Rose (Slow Pitch Player), Natasha Watley (Fast Pitch Player), Cecil Whitehead (Slow Pitch Player), and Curtis Williams (Slow Pitch Player).
USA Softball | October 22, 2021
NFCA
BC Watkins 2021 Recipient of Natasha Watley Scholarship for Social Change
Olivia Watkins, assistant coach at Boston College, is the 2021 recipient of the NFCA’s Natasha Watley Scholarship for Social Change, presented in partnership with Sue Enquist.
The scholarship is presented and awarded to a Black coach who has created educational or athletic opportunities for their community, has removed and overcome obstacles through social change, or has opened doors for growing the game of fastpitch for Black girls or women. The scholarship is presented to an individual who embodies courage and commitment to break down barriers, create change within our sport, and has a need for financial assistance to attend the NFCA National Convention. Watkins will receive a 2021 NFCA Convention registration, travel reimbursement up to $700 and up to four nights paid at the Convention host hotel in Las Vegas.
Watkins joined the Eagles’ coaching staff as the top assistant in July 2019. Prior to arrival in Chestnut Hill, Mass., she spent two-year stints as an assistant at Dartmouth College, and volunteer assistant at Illinois, under her collegiate coach Tyra Perry, who mentored her as a student-athlete at Western Kentucky University.
In addition to her many coaching duties, Watkins is passionate about social change and is making an impact at Boston College, in the softball community and in her hometown of Florence, Ala. She is always seeking ways for the BC softball program to be educated about social change as well as setting up initiatives for the team to give back. Her most recent endeavor has the Eagles collaborating with the Boston Police Department to work with a local softball league for girls in lower socio-economic communities, which will provide an opportunity for the student-athletes to teach and mentor young girls in all areas of life. Read More
NFCA | September 24, 2021
THE NEW YORK TIMES
“Softball returns to the Olympics after 13 years”
Victories by Japan and the United States on Wednesday heralded softball’s return to the Olympic stage after a 13-year absence.
“We ARE back … SOFTBALL is back in the Olympics!” Natasha Watley, a two-time U.S. Olympic softball player and a gold medalist in 2004, tweeted before the games. “I’ll be glued to the tv for the next week!”
The U.S. team is making its fifth appearance in an Olympic softball tournament. The country captured three consecutive Olympic gold medals in 1996, 2000 and 2004 and a silver medal at the 2008 Games after falling to Japan.
Japan and Australia played the first game of these Olympics, with the host nation winning, 8-1. The United States then beat Italy, 2-0.
“Our sport needs this,” Finch said. “It’s crucial for our sport globally to be in the Olympic Games and have our presence and have the platform to showcase how great of a game it is.” Read More
Alexandra E. Petri | July 20, 2021
The Denver Post
Q&A with Natasha Watley: Softball legend on how the game is evolving
“Natasha Watley was a four-time All-American shortstop for the UCLA Bruins, where she led them to a national championship in 2003. She was the first African-American female to be named to the Olympic softball team in the 2004 Athens Olympics, securing the gold for Team USA. Now, a seven-time retired pro all-star, Watley is a Youth Softball Ambassador for MLB. In her role, she supports MLB’s initiatives and strategies designed to grow both baseball and softball at the youth level.”
Q: How do you think the game has evolved in the past few years?
A: Collegiately, they’ve broken through the glass of exposure with us being on ESPN has been great. There’s so much that’s growing, but that last step is the pro league. That last level of exposure is the pro stage. Until we can break through that, I can say that we’ve made it. Until then, I can’t say that we’ve made it yet.
Q: What’s your perspective on the name, image and likeness rules that the NCAA recently just passed?
A: I actually have mixed thoughts on it. The NCAA is a big, multi-million dollar company that makes money and I love that they are sharing the wealth and want athletes to cash in on that. But also too, I love the purity in a college athlete of money not being part of the equation, just the love for the game. College for me was a time that I really matured. It was a time that if you threw money into the equation, things could’ve got lost in terms of finding myself.
CARLY EBISUYA | July 8, 2021
THE BLACK SPORTS WOMAN
“Softball has gifted me so much and I know it can do the same for other Black athletes and coaches in the sport.”
The Women’s 2021 Women's College World Series begins today (here’s the bracket!), so what better time to discuss an athlete to know: Natasha Watley, a U.S. softball great and world champion who led UCLA to its own WCWS title in 2003.
Watley is a two-time Olympian, winning gold in 2004 and silver in 2008 with the U.S. national softball team, and the first Black player to compete for the team for an Olympic games. Watley played shortstop and first base and her batting average is still among NCAA leaders. Read more of her stats here.
The California native began playing softball at five years old before going on to become one of the most decorated softball players in this country. She attended UCLA, where she was a 4-time All-American and she was a 7-time All-Star as a professional. She’s competed in the Japan Softball League and National Pro Fastpitch League. She retired in 2017. Now, she’s a motivational speaker, coach, non-profit founder, ambassador and more.
Her foundation aims to provide “underserved girls with opportunities to play.” She has a list of drills up on her YouTube channel. The Natasha Watley Scholarship for Social Change was created a scholarship for Black coaches. In the U.S., 8.2 percent of Division I softball players are Black.
“As a Black woman in this sport I realize that we are hugely underrepresented,” Watley said in the scholarship announcement.
BRIA FELICIEN | June 3, 2021
FloSoftball
10 Groundbreaking Women of Softball
A four-time First Team All-American shortstop at UCLA, Watley owns most of the school’s career hitting records: hits (395), runs scored (252), at-bats (878), triples (21), and stolen bases (158). Her batting average of .450 is second all-time at UCLA and seventh in NCAA history.
Watley’s best season was her senior year, when she led UCLA to the national title, won the Honda Sports Award as the nation's best softball player, and then was chosen as the Honda Cup winner as the nation's top female athlete. Very fast from the left side of the plate, Watley could also hit with power, notching ten home runs and fifty-three RBI that year. And her defensive range at shortstop is legendary.
Watley and her UCLA teammate Tairia Mims Flowers were the first African-Americans to play for Team USA softball in the Olympics, and Watley starred. During the “Aiming For Athens” tour in 2004, Watley hit .464 and then led the team with twelve hits at the Olympics to pace a gold-medal effort. In 2008 on the “Bound 4 Beijing” tour, Watley hit .450 and was the lead-off batter for Team USA in their silver-medal winning Olympics effort.
Watley followed her collegiate career by playing professionally when she wasn’t on duty with the national team. In the National Pro Fastpitch league, she was an All-Star seven times (playing mostly for the USSSA Pride) and became the first player in league history to amass 300 career hits (in 2014). She also played for Team Toyota in the world’s best professional league, the Japan Softball League, helping Team Toyota win five of six championships between 2010 and 2016.
Watley is a great ambassador for women’s softball, and among her many contributions is her creation of the Natasha Watley Foundation. Established in 2009, the foundation, in the words of its mission statement, “seeks to empower young women to make healthy lifestyle choices, develop strong self-esteem, and to become leaders of character through participation and training in the sport of softball.” Those words echo what many in softball attempt to do, but Watley’s foundation has an unusual core audience. Softball is expensive and suburban, and Watley’s goal is to create opportunities in softball for girls and young women in underserved communities.
Mark Allister | March 29, 2021
THE ASSEMBLY
“Natasha Watley on her Olympic journey and
hopes for the future of softball”
Natasha is the first Black woman to play softball in the Olympics for Team USA. She is a two-time Olympic medalist, winning gold in 2004 and silver in 2008. She holds the Olympic record for stolen bases. She is a two-time Pan American Games gold medalist and three-time National Pro Fastpitch champion with the United States Specialty Sports Association (U.S.S.S.A) Pride.
McKinley Tretler | August 06, 2020
FirecrackersTV
Natasha Watley Podcast Interview
“Listen to one of the most respected and accomplished players of all time talk about the good old days in coach Tony’s cage, being an All-American at UCLA, the Olympic games, and playing/coaching in Japan.”
FirecrackersTV | February 26, 2020
Natasha's talk, Reinvention: Life After Olympic Gold is a powerful story about starting over. After a lifetime focused on the singular goal of winning an Olympic Gold Medal, Natasha was lost when it was all over and she realized that the Olympic Committee provided no guidance or support and she had no idea what her "next" would be. A powerful and inspirational story about starting over and doing good. Natasha Watley is a two–time Olympic Medalist, three-time World Champion, and the driving force behind the Natasha Watley Foundation, a community service nonprofit dedicated to introducing softball to the girls of the nation’s inner cities. More than simply teaching young women how to play the sport, her organization provides a positive alternative to the daily struggles faced by many girls in low-income households.
As a Four-time All American, Natasha joined the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame after leading the Bruins to four straight Women’s College World Series and the NCAA Division 1 Softball Championship title in 2003. In 2004, Natasha played with America’s Olympic team, taking home a gold medal. In 2008, she competed again, winning a silver medal. When softball was removed from the Olympics after the 2008 games, she competed professionally with USSSA Pride and moved to Japan to continue competing. In her 8 years in Japan, she won 5 championships as a member of the Toyota Women’s Softball Team, a part of the Japan Softball League. Now in her 12th season, she is currently a coach for Team Toyota and an MLB softball Ambassador. Currently, Miss. Watley is also a public speaker/trainer on team dynamics and leadership for corporate organizations. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.
Life After Olympic Gold | January 30, 2020
Women`s Sports Foundation
Women`s Sports Foundation and MLB Among Organizations Celebrating National Girls & Women in Sports Day
Professional sports leagues are also taking action. Major League Baseball has appointed Natasha Watley as its youth softball ambassador. Watley, an Olympic gold medalist and former national champion with the UCLA Bruins, will appear at the MLB Youth Academy in Compton, California, on February 9 to join MLB in recognizing National Girls & Women in Sports Day. The free event will include a youth-oriented “Play Ball” event in the morning followed by a two-hour baseball and softball clinic led by Watley, Sahvanna Jaquish of the USA Softball Women’s National Team and Tamara Holmes, former member of the USA Baseball Women’s National Team.
Jennifer Lee | February 6, 2019
E S P N
Natasha Watley's retirement plan?
Keep on winning
Natasha Watley remembers the first softball game she played. More specifically, she remembers the first time she put bat on ball and tried to run directly to third base. It is the kind of indelible experience that is difficult to forget -- not that there is any chance her family would let that happen.
In what turned out to be the final time she put bat on ball, she beat a roller for an RBI single to help her Toyota Motors team win the championship game in the playoffs of the Japanese professional league. It was Nov. 27 of last year, her 35th birthday. When the game was over, for the first time since she ran the wrong way three decades earlier, she realized she was ready to stop.
"It's time," Watley said this week. "I'm ready to move on."
One of the best players in softball history, a four-time first-team All-American at UCLA who won Olympic gold and silver medals for the United States, three world championships and numerous professional titles both in this country and over eight seasons in the Japanese pro league, Watley made it official Wednesday. She retired.
Graham Hays | March 29, 2017
The Spokesman Review
“Watley provides big spark.”
“The games all tend to run together,” Watley said in a telephone interview from her home in California.
As a refresher, the more than 3,000 folks in attendance can’t forget the USA leadoff hitter and flash-of-light speedster’s 5-for-5 evening that generally set the tone for a doubleheader sweep by players with superb talent.
The Olympians visit here again Thursday to play a nine-inning exhibition game against area talent at 7:30 p.m. at Franklin Park, a treat for Spokane and perhaps a historic one since the announcement that this is softball’s swan song as an Olympic event.
United States teams have won the previous three and are favored to win again. But Watley acknowledges that these are bittersweet times for players whose increasingly popular spectator sport stateside is likely being swept into the Olympic dustbin.
“Softball is something you work so hard at to be at a higher level and (make it) a front-page sport,” Watley said. “It’s hard to tell us it isn’t respected worldwide. It is a popular sport and it’s disheartening to know how far come we’ve come and now it’s like taking five steps back.” Read More
Mike Vlahovich |July 6, 2008