Tom Brady DMs, HR records & a fan frenzy: How Oklahoma's Jocelyn Alo became softball's Babe Ruth
OKLAHOMA CITY — Jocelyn Alo tries to block out the world beyond the Oklahoma softball team and focus on what’s important for the Sooners.
But she still scrolls through social media because, well, every twentysomething does.
When she did so Monday after hitting a couple of oh-my-did-you-see-that homers at the Women’s College World Series, she found the sports world buzzing about her. Gushing over her abilities. Crushing on her skills.
“I got a DM from Tom Brady, too,” she said.
Almost as soon as she admitted to the direct message from arguably the greatest quarterback ever, she tapped the brakes.
“I mean, I did play with Maya,” Alo said, referring to UCLA outfielder and Tom’s niece Maya Brady. “He was just like, ‘You're a really good player. Congrats on your career.’
“You know, just keeping it simple.
No need to slow play this. The evidence is clear — as big a star as Alo was before the WCWS started last week, her celebrity has grown. She has been known in the softball world as the Home Run Queen, but now, she has joined a small sorority of softball players who have transcended the sport.
There was Lisa Fernandez, then Jennie Finch, now Jocelyn Alo.
“We’ve had a lot of great players,” former Olympic coach Mike Candrea said of the talent in the sport overall. “I look at the 2004 Olympic team and some of those players, but this has kind of taken it to a new level.”
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Candrea, who retired from coaching last season after 36 years at Arizona, believes OU as a whole has upped the attention softball is getting. The Sooners’ explosive offense gets people’s attention.
But Alo is the face.
“Jocelyn, she has been on the forefront,” Candrea told me Tuesday afternoon.
He has firsthand knowledge of what a transcendent player looks like, having coached Finch at Arizona. She was excellent on the field, both as a pitcher and a hitter, but she looked like a model. She had a California girl vibe. Blond hair. Bright eyes. Great tan.
Finch was a great ambassador, too. She signed every autograph, posed for every photo, smiled at every fan.
She still does.
“This past weekend was a good example when she was at the games,” Candrea said of Finch attending Arizona’s WCWS games. “Just constantly, kids coming up, wanting her autograph and taking pictures with her.”
Finch didn’t bat an eye.
Candrea sees a lot of similarities between Finch and Alo.
“Both of them are very humble and very willing to share themselves with others,” he said.
They have out-of-this-world abilities but down-to-earth personalities, so people simultaneously feel wowed by them and connected to them. It's a unique and powerful bond.
OU coach Patty Gasso has sensed that about the connection Alo has with fans.
“She's just really raw with excitement and love for the game,” Gasso said, “and her exuberance just is fun to watch. … I think Jocelyn Alo is a big reason why this sport has gone to another level.
“People come here to watch her like she's Babe Ruth.”
But even with Alo's personality, it would mean little to fans without the bombs.
Alo is the greatest home-run hitter in college softball history, and while her batting average and RBI totals are impressive, fans want to see homers. They want moon shots. Laser beams. Ballistic missiles.
Alo hits all of those, homers leaving the park so fast they pull you out of your seat in amazement and homers going so far past the fence they make you question whether its time to increase field dimensions.
Only thing is, no one else is hitting them that far with any regularity.
“I like to use the phrase, she's made differently,” Gasso said.
Different physically.
Different mentally.
Gasso told a story Monday about one of the first videos she saw of Alo when the Sooners were considering recruiting her. She wasn’t playing softball. She was wrestling in high school back in Hawaii.
“First, I have never seen women wrestle except on, like, WWE,” Gasso said with a laugh. “This is a whole other plane, wrestling for a high school state championship. I’m watching it, and I was just glued to it. It’s intense. It’s tough. I think she pinned the kid but dislocated her shoulder.”
Alo interrupted.
“I didn’t pin her,” she said. “I won by points.”
“I just know that her shoulder was dislocated,” Gasso said. “I’m like, ‘My God, I need this.’”
Gasso wanted to have Alo’s competitiveness, grit and determination on her team.
A quick aside: when she was only 13, Alo wanted to commit to Texas coach Mike White when he was still coaching at Oregon. But the Ducks pulled the scholarship offer after Alo switched positions. They needed a catcher, and she no longer was one.
“Probably the worst day of my coaching career,” White deadpanned but had to mean it a little.
Still, even as White and his Longhorns try to figure out ways to get Alo out these next few days, he can’t help but appreciate what Alo has done for softball.
“I hope she just keeps pushing the limit and being a great ambassador for the sport,” White said.
Alo shows absolutely no sign of slowing down.
Monday during OU’s semifinal games against UCLA, she was trending nationally on Twitter. It was the middle of the afternoon on a Monday, a time most Americans were at work. But clearly, they were watching.
Taking notice, too.
Alo has put softball on a rocket ship and blasted it into another stratosphere. Tuesday morning, Candrea was driving to the vacation home he has in the Arizona mountains to escape the heat in Tucson, and on the way, he tuned his satellite radio to ESPNU.
“And they were talking about softball,” he said. “They were talking about Jocelyn.
“Ten years ago, you didn’t have that.”
Even as Alo tries to block out the world and focus on the Sooners, she can’t help noticing what’s happening. She can’t help seeing the impact she’s having on the sport she loves. It is knocking on her door at the team hotel.
“We are having some little girls come to our hotel,” Alo said of young fans seeking her out for autographs and pictures. “It’s cool that they're coming … but at the same time I'm going to put my blinders on and have my ‘do not disturb’ sign on.
“We're going to need a little more security now.”
Direct messages from the GOAT.
Hotel visits from kids.
Jocelyn Alo isn't quite sure what's going to happen next, but if history is any indication, she's going to keep crushing home runs and the sports world is going to keep crushing on her.
Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at jcarlson@oklahoman.com. Like her at facebook.com/JenniCarlsonOK, follow her at twitter.com/jennicarlson_ok.