Husky softball legend Danielle Lawrie inducted into Pac-12 Hall of Honor
Danielle Lawrie pitched the Huskies to their first NCAA softball championship in 2009 and was the National Player of the Year.
Check any list of the most dominating pitchers in college softball history, and you will find Danielle Lawrie’s name near the very top. That’s why she is part of the first all-female list of former student-athletes, coaches and administrators being inducted into the Pac-12 Hall of Honor in 2023.
Her list of accomplishments could fill an encyclopedia. The first Canadian recruit to play for the UW—not to mention the first player recruited by coach Heather Tarr, ’96—Lawrie started opening eyes at the age of 14 when Tarr spotted her playing in Canada. With her unique pitching style and blazing fastballs, Lawrie, ’10, was a three-time first-team All-American who led the Huskies to their first national championship in 2009.
And what a year 2009 was. Lawrie was the Pac-10 Pitcher of the Year, National Player of the Year and Most Outstanding Player in the Women’s College World Series when she led a Husky team that went 51-12, finished second in the Pac-10 and then beat Florida for the championship in the College World Series.
That year, Lawrie recorded 521 strikeouts with only 76 walks in 352.2 innings. She still holds conference records for strikeouts (1,860) and wins (136), played in the National Pro Fastpitch league and was a two-time Olympian (2008, 2020) for Team Canada, earning the victory in the Bronze Medal game in Tokyo.
Lawrie, a 2018 inductee into the Husky Hall of Fame, was only the fifth Husky player ever to have her jersey number retired. She had numerous schools recruiting her out of her hometown of Langley, British Columbia, but fortunately for the Huskies, “I wanted to be close to home. I wanted my family to be able to watch me,” she said recently. “And once I took a visit [to the UW] there was no question: This is where I wanted to be.”
And the girl who started playing softball at age 10 sure made the most of her opportunity at the UW, employing her favorite quote as her driving force: “You 100% get what you put into things.”