A year and a half ago, University of Utah head softball coach Amy Hogue was driving when she received a phone call that would change the trajectory of her sport in Utah.
“I had to pull my car over. I was sure I was going to crash with that news,” she said Monday.
The Athletes Unlimited Softball League wanted to survey Utah’s Dumke Family Softball Stadium and Salt Lake City as a potential home for one of its professional softball teams.
Though Hogue knew Salt Lake City “would sell itself,” it felt like recruiting weekend when AUSL showed up, she said.
During the visit, Hogue was stopped mid-sentence and was told that AUSL “already knew that we had pretty much everything they were looking for. They just wanted to check all the boxes.”
Hogue’s belief in Salt Lake City’s potential as an AUSL market proved true. On Jan. 13, Athletes Unlimited Softball League announced Salt Lake City would be one of the new home markets for its six teams.
And on Monday, Hogue stood center stage at The Depot in Salt Lake City at the media launch event of the AUSL’s Utah Talons, where she helped usher in a new chapter in professional softball.
A homecoming for a role model
The addition of the Utah Talons will bring a host of elite athletes to the state, including former Utah Ute great Hannah Flippen.
ESPN’s Holly Rowe, who was Monday’s emcee, described Flippen as “the best second baseman that ever played at the University of Utah.”
As a Ute, Flippen was a three-time All American, two-time Pac-12 Conference Player of the Year and the 2017 Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year.
On Monday, AUSL commissioner Kim Ng called Flippen “one of the best clutch players in the league.”
“Thanks, coach, for making Hannah the player she is today, and we’re happy to take any more Utes you’ve got,” Ng said.
But Flippen’s softball legacy in Utah started long before she began her college career.
It began in Logan, Utah, where Flippen’s mother, Mary Lou Ramm Flippen, led Utah State to back-to-back national championships.
Ramm Flippen, the first woman to have her jersey retired at the university, set school records in ERA and shutouts.
“She lives vicariously now through this journey, and so she is over the moon about the selection of Salt Lake City being a home city,” Flippen said. “She loves this place as much as I do. She calls this her second home as much as I do. Don’t tell the people up at Utah State that she says that anymore.”
Her mom has already bought tickets and booked her flights for each of the Talons’ 12 home games, according to Flippen.
“She is thrilled at the growth of our sport as well because she didn’t have the best opportunity. She was playing in women’s leagues and just like random pickup games, and so, to see an established organization pushing this forward has been awesome,” Flippen said.
Professional softball role models were hard for Flippen to find growing up, so she looked up to baseball players in addition to her mom.
“I wanted to be an MLB player, and now, people can say, I want to be an AUSL player and that is so cool,” Flippen said. “To think that somebody’s like, ‘I want to play shortstop like Hannah does’ is such a cool moment, and I’m so lucky to be in this position.”
Elite athletes as local role models
The AUSL is the professional home of a majority of the best players in the country with 93% of the U.S. national softball team playing in the league, according to Rowe.
In addition to Flippen, last year’s AUSL Defensive Player of the Year honoree, the Talons’ roster also features Megan Faraimo, one of four UCLA Bruins pitchers to win at least 100 games.
“She wins everywhere she goes,” Rowe said Monday.
Faraimo said she’s looking forward to integrating herself into the Salt Lake community.
“I’m looking forward to just really being a part of a new community and being able to go back home to San Diego and be like, ‘Oh, everyone has to go check out Salt Lake City now,’” she said.
Faraimo, whose grandparents immigrated from American Samoa, is also excited to be a part of — and be a role model — for Utah’s Polynesian community.
“Being able to represent on a stage like this, and then after the game to see all the young Polynesians who come up and they have a role model, is such a cool moment,” she said.
When general manager Lisa Fernandez was a star at UCLA, most players had to retire after college, she said.
“There were very few that were able to continue to play this game.”
Fernandez said the team embraces the opportunity to provide visible role models for young players.
“When you can see that someone else can do it, why not you?” she said. “And I think that’s the message we want to be able to provide to all those little girls.”
Checking the final box
When Hogue showed off Salt Lake City to AUSL, she was told there was just one final box to check: does Salt Lake City show out?
The answer was yes.
Last summer, AUSL stopped in Salt Lake City as one of its 10 stops for the season. It marked the league’s 15th sellout of the season, according to KUTV.
“When Hannah came with her team and played in Salt Lake City, I was praying that we’d show up because that was the last box that we needed to check and we did,” Hogue said.
The Utah head coach has already purchased her season tickets for her and her family.
Utah Talons season tickets are available on the team’s website and start at roughly $200, equaling about $16 per game. Group tickets are also available, and single game tickets will be made available in the future.
