Patty Gasso can afford to be picky. When you’re the key figurehead for an entire spot, having people lining up just for an opportunity to play for you comes with the territory. Sure, each offseason presents its own set of challenges, but for Gasso those are eased a little by picking up the phone and inviting a player sitting in the transfer portal to come to Norman. Not just any player though, top-tier players who are an exact fit for what Gasso needs.
A perfect example of this is Kelly Maxwell. At the end of last season, Oklahoma’s star pitcher Jordy Bahl decided to her All-American arm back home to Nebraska. What did Patty Gasso do? She wished Bahl the best and then dipped into the portal for another All-American arm in Maxwell. The shockwaves from this move consumed the state because Maxwell jumped Bedlam lines to come and play for Gasso. That’s the advantage of seven national championships, including the last three in a row. That’s how it works for Gasso and the Soooners. Who wouldn’t want to chase history and an unprecedented fourth-consecutive title?
Patty Gasso doesn’t rebuild her team, she reloads it, and the portal is a key part of her strategy. There’s not a coach in the country who does it better. Don’t get me wrong, there’s also not a coach in the country who develops talent better that what Gasso and her staff are doing right now. Oklahoma has three legitimate National Player of the Year candidates on the roster as the season approaches (Jayda Coleman, Kinzie Hansen, Tiare Jennings). All three came to Oklahoma as freshmen, and all three are among the top players in the country at their respective positions.
What Gasso’s gift is integrating “home grown” talent with key portal additions to make an All Star type line up. That’s why the Sooners are on the cusp of history, chasing a fourth-consecutive title. It’s why they’ve won 53 games in a row. It’s why they were the unanimous pick to win the Big 12 conference for a 12th consecutive season in 2024.
Oklahoma had seven players named to the 2024 Preseason All-Big 12 Team. Of those, five came to Norman as freshmen (Nicole May, Rylie Boone, Jayda Coleman, Tiare Jennings, and Kinzie Hansen) and two came to Oklahoma as transfers (Alyssa Brito – Oregon, Kelly Maxwell – Oklahoma State). To take it a step further, D1 Softball released it’s Top 100 players for 2024. Seven Sooners made that list as well, the most of any team in the country, and six are in the Top 30, two are in the Top 10. Cydney Sanders (Arizona State) joins Brito and Maxwell on that list as former transfer player now representing the crimson and cream.
That’s the power of the portal, but it’s also the power of Patty Gasso. When she speaks, athletes listen. “We had a great conversation from the start,” Maxwell said last October when reminiscing of Gasso being one of the first coaches to call her after she hit the portal . “I told her the things I was looking for and I came on a visit. She was my first visit. Then I went to a couple others and I was still kind of bouncing back and forth because I wanted to go to med school (after softball).”
Patty Gasso is the Queen of College Softball. The way she coaches, the way she recruits, the way she hits the portal can’t be duplicated, or topped, by any other program in the country. There are so many keys to her success, but managing the transfer portal has been vital and she is proven to have mastered it.
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