All-Time UCLA Softball Mount Rushmore
UCLA Athletics has a storied history of winning titles, producing Hall of Famers and fostering young athletes who go on to become bigger than their respective sports. For the last 103 years, champions have called Westwood home.
On the diamond, UCLA softball has had its fair share of iconic and important figures. Here are the four who top the list, and have their faces up on All Bruins' metaphorical Mount Rushmore for the team.
Sue Enquist
As the most successful program in collegiate softball history, the Bruins truly have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to key figures. As such, it's probably best to only recognize one coach on the team's all-time Mount Rushmore, even if that leaves off some truly iconic figures.
There are just too many wildly impactful players and coaches to recognize them all, and the coach who narrowly rises above the rest is arguably Enquist.
Enquist's time as a Bruin started in the pre-NCAA days, and she led UCLA to the AIAW national championship as a student-athlete in 1978. Enquist boasted a .401 career batting average, which stood as a program record for the rest of the century, and she was the team's first-ever All-American.
Returning to Westwood as an assistant in 1980, she was a key part of the staff on the Bruins' first four NCAA championships. Enquist joined Sharron Buckus as co-head coach in 1989, winning another Women's College World Series that season to start a run of three titles in four years.
Enquist helped the Bruins add another championship in 1995, although it was vacated by the NCAA due to scholarship violations, but she took over as sole the head coach in 1997 and won three more Women's College World Series on her own.
The sheer amount of winning UCLA did under Enquist is unmatched, and her .835 winning percentage is the best-ever for a coach with more than 800 wins. Enquist's 887 wins are the most in program history, and she has 11 total national championships.
Enquist also coached a long list of legendary players, and she helped mold the current staff of Kelly Inouye-Perez and Lisa Fernandez. While she wasn't the one in charge in the program's early days, she was a keystone piece of the team from the very beginning and her influence will continue to be felt in the years to come.
Lisa Fernandez
There is a strong argument to be made that Fernandez is the greatest college softball player of all time, and her accomplishments show why.
Across her four years as a student-athlete at UCLA, Fernandez was a First Team All-American and a member of the All-College World Series Team all four seasons while winning Pac-10 Player of the Year and Honda Award for the best player in softball three times each. Fernandez became the first softball player to win the Honda-Broderick Cup as a senior in 1993 – beating out Mia Hamm and Sheryl Swoopes – capping off one of the most statistically impressive seasons ever.
Fernandez had the lowest ERA in the country at 0.25 while also boasting the highest batting average in the nation that year at .510. Fernandez's career ERA of 0.22 is the second-lowest in NCAA history, also ranking sixth in strikeouts and seventh in wins among Bruins, and her .382 batting average is good enough to make the top-10 in program history.
The first number UCLA softball ever retired was actually Fernandez's No. 16, and she tossed 74 shutouts, 11 total no-hitters and two solo perfect games.
Two of Fernandez's collegiate campaigns as a player ended in national titles – the Bruins were runner-ups in other two – and she went on to win three Olympic gold medals for Team USA. She wasn't riding the pine during those international victories, either, as she threw the final pitch to clinch the gold each and every time.
Fernandez was an assistant coach for the Bruins from 1997 to 1999, and after stepping down into a volunteer role from 2000 to 2004, she returned to a full-time position in 2007. Seven of UCLA's Women's College World Series have come with Fernandez on the team in some capacity, and her status as a pitching guru and recruiting powerhouse have helped the Bruins succeed year after year in the modern era as well.
Natasha Watley
The Bruins' star shortstop from the early days of the 21st century stuffed the stat sheet for a few teams that came up just short before ultimately going out victorious to end her career in Westwood.
Outside of playing the third-most games in UCLA history, Watley's 878 at-bats, 395 hits, 252 runs, 21 triples and 158 stolen bases all rank No. 1 and her .450 batting average ranks No. 2. That mark is also seventh-best in NCAA history, so her laundry list of accomplishments extend far beyond the reaches of Westwood.
Watley was a four-time All-American, starting things off by setting the program record for single-season stolen bases her freshman year. She exceeded that mark in each of the next four seasons, topping out at 52 steals in 2001, when she also strung together a 36-game hitting streak.
For all of her success at the plate and on the basepaths, though, Watley's teams kept falling short of a title in her first three seasons. That was to no fault of Watley, who recorded multiple hits every time the Bruins were eliminated in Oklahoma City, but it was never enough to get them over the hump.
Things finally changed in 2003, an ultimately record-setting campaign that helped Watley earn Pac-10 Player of the Year, the Honda Sports Award for softball and the Honda-Broderick Cup for top collegiate female athlete. That individual success carried into team success as well, with UCLA winning the Women's College World Series behind Watley's clutch RBI and go-ahead run to capitalize on Keira Goerl's no-hitter.
Watley won a gold medal at the Athens 2004 Olympics and a silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, serving as a volunteer assistant coach back in Westwood in the interim, and she was inducted into the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame in 2014.
Stacey Nuveman
One of the greatest sluggers in softball history once called Westwood home, and she certainly left her mark in the record books.
Nuveman was in Westwood for six years – redshirting in 1998 and taking 2000 off to practice with Team USA – and she certainly made the most of that longer-than-average career. As a result, Nuveman's 264 games played rank No. 1 in program history, but she did far more than just suit up for the Bruins.
Boasting the third-highest batting average in NCAA history, Nuveman leads all Bruins with a .466 career mark. Nuveman also ranks No. 1 in home runs, RBIs, slugging percentage, on-base percentage, total bases and walks while also ranking No. 2 in hits and No. 5 in doubles.
Nuveman won two Olympic gold medals, an Olympic silver medal and a Women's College World Series title, and her Bruin teams were runner-ups for the national title twice. Along the way, Nuveman was named to the All-American First Team four times.
The high-level of team success UCLA had in that era, early on in Enquist's days as solo head coach, came courtesy of Nuveman's bat, and her slugging abilities are among the best to ever play the game.
Honorable Mentions
Sharron Buckus: The catalyst of UCLA softball surely deserves mention on this list, as she was the team's first-ever head coach that somehow started off as a part-time employee. Buckus went on to win nine national championships with the Bruins and cemented them as a true power in the sport, putting the building blocks in place for them to succeed for the next six decades.
Kelly Inouye-Perez: Although she has the fewest NCAA championships as a solo head coach, Inouye-Perez does have the most total wins in the role. The sport has grown since Buckus and Enquist were in Westwood, and the annual title race is thus more crowded than it was in the 1980s, but Inouye-Perez has still managed to sustain UCLA as the top program in the nation despite the increased competition. Add her three Women's College World Series as a player and three as an assistant to her two as a head coach, and Inouye-Perez can only rise higher as her coaching career goes on.
Keira Goerl: As the program's all-time leader in wins with 130, it is bizarre not having Goerl make the cut. Goerl had a part in 13 no-hitters and two perfect games, and her no-hitter to close out the 2003 Women's College World Series made the cut for the Top 25 Defining Moments in NCAA History during the NCAA’s 100th anniversary in 2006. The 1,095 strikeouts Goerl hurled in her career are also second-most in UCLA history, so just because Fernandez is viewed as the greatest pitcher in program history doesn't ding Goerl's legacy in the slightest.
Rachel Garcia: Garcia was the best softball player in the country for several years, and it just goes to show how accomplished UCLA is as a program that she didn't make the cut for the top-four contributors. Garcia was the Honda Award for softball three times – winning the Honda Cup in both 2019 and 2021 – and she nearly single-handedly lifted the Bruins to the 2019 Women's College World Series title by tossing gems and crushing homers in Oklahoma City. Her placement on the program's all-time leaderboards may not match up with the hype around her success in the moment, but she does rank top-five in strikeouts and wins.
Tairia Mims: A true versatile player who picked up All-American nods as a third baseman, first baseman and a utility, Mims made her presence felt in the field and at the dish. Mims' 61 home runs, 228 RBIs, 59 doubles and 532 total bases all rank third in UCLA history, and she also has the sixth-most hits and fourth-highest slugging percentage. Winning a Women's College World Series title in 2003, Mims was also around for plenty of team success.
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