Natasha Watley named Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year

Jet, July 14, 2003

UCLA softball star Natasha Watley was recently honored as the Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year at Columbia College in New York.

Watley, who's played softball since the age of 5, blurted "Wow!" as she accepted the large silver Honda-Broderick Cup that has gone to the best women in college sports for 27 years. She is only the second softball player to win the Honda-Broderick Cup. Former UCLA pitcher Lisa Fernandez won the honor first in 1993.

"It's kind of shocking," she said after she flew 10 hours from Hawaii to receive the coveted award (she was there playing with the national team).

A senior shortstop, Watley batted .440 in the Women's College World Series to help UCLA win the NCAA championship. For the season she hit .481 with 10 homers, scored 64 runs and stole 35 bases. She had garnered more than 100 hits in a season for the third time and had a career batting average of .450, seventh-best in NCAA history.

Watley will play in the Pan American games this summer, then try out for the Olympic team (to be named in September) that will seek a third-straight gold medal in Greece next summer.

I've always wanted to be an Olympian, it didn't matter which sport," Watley said. I never thought it would be softball, to be honest. Making the Olympic team is my No. 1 goal."