by Stacy Jackson
June 5, 2025
Texas Tech softball coach Gerry Glasco new a deal to get Canady wanted to be increased than her agent’s proposed provide of $400,000.
Reigning USA Softball Nationwide Participant of the Yr, NiJaree Canady, hit the ball out of the park after accepting her newest NIL cope with Texas Tech.
Canady made headlines final July when she transferred from Stanford, and she or he is garnering public consideration once more with the historic deal price $1,050,024 from Texas Tech’s NIL collective, The Matador Membership. In keeping with ESPN, the NIL deal is damaged down into one million for Canaday, $50,000 for dwelling bills, and $24 for her jersey quantity. The star athlete who led Stanford to 2 consecutive Girls’s School World Sequence appearances is now pitching in West Texas with the Pink Raiders and exhibiting different feminine athletes what’s doable in girls’s sports activities.
“There are plenty of male athletes who get that, and it’s not a headline anymore,” Canady mentioned. “I hope that occurs for ladies’s sports activities, too. I really feel like it may be a stress in case you let or not it’s, however actually, I feel it’s only a privilege. I hope somebody tomorrow is available in and builds it much more.”
Pink Raiders coach Gerry Glasco drafted up a candy pitch to attain Canady as a participant at Texas Tech. “We’re speaking a couple of once-in-a-generation participant that’s already made a reputation throughout America,” he mentioned. “She’s a folks hero in our sport, and she or he’s a sophomore.” After two seasons at Stanford that solely accounted for Canady hitting simply 35 occasions, Glasco, who has three daughters who pitched and hit, made hitting a major focus in his pitch, and he didn’t overlook Canady’s price. “Whenever you’re an athlete, the one factor you don’t need to be is a pitcher solely. In our sport, the pitcher is so necessary, so we restrict them. And I feel that’s what she felt like in her school profession,” he mentioned. “She needs the chance.”
Whereas the athlete’s agent initially sought $400,000 to make the transfer from Stanford, Glasco knew the provide was too low for the rising star.
“She positively put Texas Tech softball on the map,” mentioned Tracy Sellers, a former softball participant at Texas Tech. Sellers and her husband, John, a former Pink Raiders soccer participant, know Canady deserves a high NIL deal simply as a lot as any male athlete. “She labored so exhausting to be the No. 1 pitcher within the nation,” mentioned Sellers. “I left that assembly and thought, that is who I’d like to put plenty of effort into due to who she is.” The Sellers, who’re high Matador Membership boosters, beforehand donated $11 million to the athletic division in 2022. A million of the funding supported upgrades for the Pink Raiders stadium.
Canady thought-about the provide with the Pink Raiders for over a month earlier than she accepted. The NIL deal for the Topeka, Kansas, native is about greater than accepting an enormous lump sum of cash, however about putting herself ready to open doorways for the subsequent technology of athletes to profit. She hopes to speculate her cash in opening her personal services in the future to teach youth.
As of immediately, the Texas Tech pitcher leads the nation with a 0.90 ERA (Earned Run Common). This yr, she boasts 95 at-bats at .305 with 11 residence runs and 5 doubles. She was honored because the Huge 12 Pitcher of the Yr and led the Pink Raiders to win its first Girls’s School World Sequence. The championship sequence continues for Canady and No. 12-seed Texas Tech on Wednesday as they face off towards No. 6-seed Texas Longhorns at 8 p.m. ET.
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