ESPN.com's Graham Hays has an article today about senior LSU pitcher Rachele Fico and her relationship with her father, who has been fighting cancer for 10 years. I must admit that I follow team performance more than that of individual players, so I'm not up to date on a lot of names. Still, Fico's seemed familiar to me. As it turns out, I posted a brief item on her in 2009. At the time, she had pitched 22 perfect games in her high school career!
NiJaree Canady, whose sub-1.00 ERA helped lead Stanford to the Women's College World Series in both her years with the Cardinal, announced on July 24 that she is transferring to Texas Tech. I've lived in Lubbock for 27 years and can say that the town has been improving with a greater selection of restaurants and shops, and a new downtown performing arts center. Likewise, nice new facilities have been dotting the Texas Tech campus . Still, it seems unlikely that Canady would have become a Red Raider without the $1 million annual Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deal for her, made possible by the donation of a Texas Tech alumni couple. So stunning an event is this, even in the ever-changing world of collegiate athletics, that the New York Times even ran a behind-the-scenes story on Canady's path to Texas Tech. I look forward to being in the stands to watch Canady pitch next spring, an opportunity I never expected to have.