Patty Gasso - Head Coach - Softball Coaches

Patty Gasso

Title:
Head Coach

Finishing up her 31st season at the University of Oklahoma in 2025, NFCA Hall of Fame head coach Patty Gasso has molded the OU softball program into a national power and permanently placed herself among the elite college softball coaches in the country.

In February of 2025 she was named USA Softball Women's National Team (WNT) head coach as selected by the USA Softball Selection Review panel. She will lead the U.S. Olympic Team through the 2025-28 quadrennial cycle, which includes the LA28 Olympic Games.

Three months later she was named SEC Coach of the Year, helping the Sooners to an SEC Regular Season Championship and SEC Tournament Co-Championship.

Oklahoma has won eight national championships (2000, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024), is the only NCAA softball program to win four consecutive national championships and is one of just three programs in NCAA history to win more than two national titles. Gasso has reached the Women’s College World Series 18 times during her tenure, and has advanced to the postseason in each one of her 31 seasons (no tournament in 2020).

Entering 2025 and with 34 seasons as a head coach to her name, Gasso has a career collegiate coaching record of 1,728-420-3 (.802) and holds a record of 1,566-361-2 (.812) at OU.

She closed her time in the Big 12 as the winningest coach, men's or women's, in the league’s history and has more than twice as many overall wins as any other coach in OU annals. The Sooners claimed 15 Big 12 regular season titles, including an unprecedented 11 straight from the 2012 season through 2023, and nine conference tournament titles under her direction. Gasso’s teams finished second or higher 24 times in the 28 years since the inception of the Big 12 in 1996.

Numerous Sooner players have prospered under Gasso’s tutelage and garnered national, regional and conference recognition. Most recently, Jocelyn Alo helped lead the Sooners to back-to-back titles en route to winning consecutive USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year awards in 2021 and 2022. Keilani Ricketts was also a two-time USA Softball Player of the Year in 2012 and 2013. Gasso has recruited and coached 89 All-Americans, 177 All-Region honors and 206 all-conference selections at OU.

In the Big 12 era, Sooners have been named Big 12 Player of the Year a total of 16 times and Big 12 Pitcher of the Year nine times, while nine have been selected as Big 12 Freshman of the Year and one as Big 12 Newcomer of the Year. In 2010, Amber Flores became the first player in league history to earn player-of-the-year honors twice, Shelby Pendley joined her in 2015 before Alo claimed the honor in consecutive seasons in 2021 and 2022.

The OU softball success under Gasso has also spilled over into the classroom where the Sooners have been honored with 180 academic all-conference honors. Twenty-five of those have gone on to become Academic All-Americans, including Lana Moran and Alyssa Brito, the 2000 and 2024 Academic All-Americans of the Year.

Gasso and her staff have consistently been recognized for their efforts on and off the field. The staff was awarded three consecutive Speedline/NFCA Midwest Region Coaching Staff of the Year awards from 1999-2001 and received the national honor in 2000, 2013, 2016, 2017 and 2023. Gasso and staff have claimed the regional honor in 17 of their 31 seasons, with the most recent award coming in 2023. In addition, Gasso has been named the Big 12 Coach of the Year 15 times: 1996, 1999, 2000, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2023.