Four years ago, Tim Walton didn’t have much to sell to recruits.
The Gators softball team had never been to a College World Series, won a Southeastern Conference Tournament or produced a first-team All-American. Florida won one regular-season SEC crown in 1998, and, according to Walton, played “a little bit above average” for 10 years.
Out of necessity, he stressed potential to prospective Gators.
“One thing that I tried to sell these players on in the recruiting process is that they were going to have the opportunity to build a program that wasn’t built yet,” Walton said. “We had everything you could want here —- except the championships.”
Fast-forward to this past Saturday where five seniors in orange and blue embraced one another in the Pressly Stadium pitching circle at the conclusion of the Senior Day ceremony.
As a sellout crowd gave them a standing ovation, the message was clear.
“That was pretty chilling,” Walton said.
Since Kelsey Bruder, Aja Paculba, Megan Bush, Stephanie Brombacher and Tiffany DeFelice stepped onto campus, the Gators have been to three College World Series, added two regular-season SEC titles and, after sweeping No. 3 Tennessee this weekend, won the SEC East four years in a row.
“Coach Walton promised all of us that we were going to help build this program,” Bush said.
“I think that we’ve fulfilled our promise to him, and he’s fulfilled his promise to us.”
Three of the five seniors (Bruder, Paculba and Brombacher) are All-Americans. Walton believes Bush should become the fourth this season.
Bruder, Bush and Paculba will continue their careers this summer in National Pro Fastpitch. For Brombacher and DeFelice, this season is the end.
“It was a tough weekend,” Walton said. “They mean a lot to me.”
While the seniors could easily rattle off their school and SEC records for hours, they prefer to talk about their teammates, specifically the underclassmen.
After all, helping young players is part of their job as builders.
“I tell all of the freshmen that it gets easier, because freshman year is the hardest year,” Bruder said. “I might have weighed more than my batting average freshman year.”
Walton said generations of Gators will reap the benefits of the hard work these seniors have put in.
The foundation continues next season with what ESPN Rise rated the No. 1 recruiting class in college softball.
But for the five seniors, a national championship is still on the wish list.
