You can’t pitch around your wrestling opponent.
Oklahoma softball coach Patty Gasso said she learned what she needed to about Jocelyn Alo’s athleticism, toughness and intensity from a video of the kid from Hauula as a high school grappler.
“It won me over completely (during recruiting),” Gasso said in a news conference Tuesday. “I’d never seen women wrestling, except in the WWF.”
Now, seven years after her last wrestling match, Alo is on the verge of completing the greatest hitting career in college softball history.
The Sooners tangle with Texas in a best-of-three final series at the Women’s College World Series championship, starting today. As the last act of her record-smashing five seasons, Alo will try to lead Oklahoma to a successful defense of the national title.
No one would be surprised if the reigning two-time national player of the year adds to her NCAA record of 120 career home runs. Her best performances tend to come in the biggest games.
Last year Alo homered in both victories when the Sooners beat Florida State for the crown. On Saturday she hit one out in the first inning of OU’s win against Texas. Then, on Monday she went 4-for-4 with two homers, including a grand slam in the 15-0 rout of UCLA that got Oklahoma to the finals.
She’s the first ever with three seasons of 30 or more home runs. But is she the greatest college softball player ever? That’s debatable, since Alo doesn’t play in the field, and this sport produced combo hitting-pitching superstars way before anyone had even heard of Shohei Ohtani. Lisa Fernandez and Jennie Finch come to mind — dominant pitchers who performed very well as batters, too.
But greatest hitter? Some numbers lie, but the truth is no one has compiled a career at the plate close to Alo’s.
Her fame grows with every blast. She even got a GOAT-to-GOAT congratulatory message from Tom Brady on social media. Alo and Maya Brady, the NFL superstar’s niece, were teammates in travel ball. Maya now plays for UCLA and hit two homers in the first game of the Bruins-Sooners doubleheader Monday.
Gasso spoke about recruiting Alo. She had already seen her play softball and was impressed with her swing.
“It was a little bit raw, but it was powerful,” Gasso said.
If there was any doubt, the wrestling video crushed it like Alo does softballs. Gasso said it made her think, “I need this. I want this.”
She recruited starting center fielder Jayda Coleman partly because of what she observed on a volleyball court.
“I like to see athletes that I have play other sports. When I get to see them do other things it just gives me a different feel and eye for their personality.”
Alo won a state individual wrestling championship as a sophomore at Kahuku in 2015. That was her last match. She transferred to Campbell and the word was already out not to give the Sabers catcher anything to hit; Campbell won the state Division I championship both of her years anyway.
Alo’s father, Levi, had all four of his daughters participate in wrestling.
“I love the sport,” he said in a 2019 article in The Norman Transcript. “I knew that if they could wrestle and handle wrestling practice that they could do anything they wanted to because ain’t no practice like a wrestling practice.”
Jocelyn said it improved her mental toughness and discipline, which transferred to the diamond.
The maturity that comes with discipline might also help her handle her growing fame. Her coach helps.
“Coach Gasso’s made me think twice about what I say, think twice about what I do, think twice about what I post,” Alo said at Tuesday’s new conference.
They both understand it’s a balancing act. Alo is a once-in-a-generation player with an engaging personality who wants to help boost the profile of her sport.
She got a one-year taste of the NCAA’s rule change that lets student-athletes profit financially from their popularity. And the end of her college career coincides with the start of Women’s Professional Fastpitch. Maybe it’s just another re-boot that will sputter, but maybe not — maybe in the near future it won’t be nearly impossible for a woman, no matter how good, to earn a living as a softball player in the U.S.
“I think it’s going in a really good direction,” Alo said. “Little girls in the stands will now say, ‘Oh, I can be a professional softball player.’”
If that does happen now, she will probably deserve a lot of credit. At least for another two games, she is the hitter everyone stops whatever they’re doing to watch.
“Just taking it for what it is and running with it,” Alo said. “You never know when people aren’t going to remember your name. Records are meant to be broken, trophies get dust on them. I’m just going to embrace this for however long it happens and just try to get my message out that anything can happen.”
