Walton ESPY-bound to support Haeger
Friday, July 10, 2015 | Softball, Chris Harry
UF softball coach Tim Walton, alongside 2015 Women's College World Series MVP Lauren Haeger, addresses the crowd at Pressly Stadium during the team's June 4 pep rally celebrating a second straight NCAA championship.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Tim Walton's needs a traveling secretary to manage his calendar these days.
“Just been running around, man,” Walton said. “On the move.”
Since leading the Florida softball team to a second straight Women's College World Series title five weeks ago, Walton has taken a couple recruiting spins (with more to come this month), worked as an assistant coach with the Team USA's U19 team, returned to campus for some Gators camps and next week is off to California for a speaking engagement and then a little side trip Wednesday to the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles.
ESPYS, here he comes.
“That should be pretty cool,” he said.
Walton and wife Samantha will accompany Lauren Haeger to the glitzy, star-studded event. Haeger, whose pitching/hitting exploits were at the forefront of UF's run to the NCAA championship, is nominated for a pair of ESPYs: Best Female College Athlete and Best Championship Performance.
Haeger, who was in Los Angeles last week as a finalist for the Honda Award (given to the nation's best all-around athlete), has a reasonable chance to win the former (her chief competition being California swimmer Missy Franklin and Connecticut basketball player Breanna Stewart).
She has zero chance to win the latter; not against LeBron James, Madison Bumgarner and American Pharoah.
“She's up against one of the greatest basketball players of all time and one of the greatest race horses of all time,” Walton said. “I think there's something comparable with Madison Bumgarner and how they both put their teams on their shoulders, but obviously that's a different level. But still.”
Bumgarner, the San Francisco Giants ace and reigning World Series MVP, is one of the better hitting pitchers in the major leagues, but he's yet to be talked about in the same sentence as Babe Ruth.
Haeger has that going for her.
Screen shots of Haeger and Ruth -- the only bat-and-ball players ever to hit at least 70 home runs and win at least 70 games as a pitcher -- were prominent during the WCWS and huge in Haeger earning her national acclaim. That notoriety, though, came long after she was a first-round pick of the pro softball Dallas Charge (for whom she's been playing the last month), and after she began taking the Gators on their eventual ride to Oklahoma City with a masterful run through the NCAA regional and Super Regional in both the circle and batter's box. 
For Walton, seeing Haeger rack up the headlines has been a blast and somewhat parallels what pitcher Hannah Rogers enjoyed after a similar rampage (minus the bat) in the postseason a year ago. Rogers (right) got the ESPY invite also, but Walton didn't make that trip.
He's not missing this one.
“I don't want to just coach this team anymore. I want to be more involved with things they're doing and accomplishing. I want to show my support for them,” Walton said. “”Lauren, the last few weeks, she's been living a fast life -- with pro ball, the Honda, now the ESPYs -- and she's probably just trying to keep up with a lot stuff ... but it's a lot of fun stuff. And for a woman, playing sports at the level's she's played, this could possibly be the highlights of her athlete career, right here, right now, and I think it's fantastic. I want to be there to enjoy it too.”
The Florida program has been spoiled the last two years with the individual achievements of Rogers and Haeger. As good as, say, first-team All-American and Southeastern Conference Player of the Year Kelsey Stewart might be, there are no guarantees she'll be on the red-carpet circuit this time next year.
"You just never know," he said.
So Walton, between recruiting visits and Team USA and camps, is going to soak it all in. All of it.
