GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Lauren Haeger was kicked back on her couch in North Carolina last week when Tim Walton, her softball coach from her days as a Florida All American, buzzed her cell phone. Her initial thought was, "Uh oh, what happened?" but Walton eased those concerns fairly quickly.
Haeger, a member of the UF Athletics Hall of Fame Class of 2025 that will be inducted Friday night, was told she may want to reconfigure her already jam-packed social/partying calendar this weekend.
"I figured he was going to ask me to talk to the team or something," Haeger said.
Nope. Instead, Walton extended an offer to be the celebrity "Mr. Two Bits" when the Gators (2-4, 1-2) take on Mississippi State (4-2, 0-2) in their homecoming game Saturday at Spurrier/Florida Field.
Lauren Haeger was the 2015 NCAA Player of the Year and Honda Award winner as the nation's most outstanding softball player.
Haeger, now 33 and a decade removed from leading UF to the second of two straight Women's College World Series championships, had to pick herself off the floor before breaking into tears of joy.
"Out of all the Hall of Fame inductees, they asked me, so I couldn't believe it," she said. "It may be the coolest thing I have ever been asked to do. I may black out in front of the whole stadium."
Not likely. Haeger, after all, stood tall in the most pressure-packed moments of her athletic career. Plus, she's been lobbying for this opportunity for a long time. She recalls tweeting about wanting to wear the George Edmondson get-up and do the chant in both 2017 and again in '21.
Now, she'll become just the fourth softball player to get the nod, joining Stacey Nelson and Hannah Rogers, who tandemly did it in 2015, and Aubree Munro, who was part of a group cheer along with fellow 2021 USA Olympians with UF ties that same year.
"It's one thing to be asked to throw out a first pitch," said Haeger, who now tutors softball to young players in Charlotte. "But this is amazing."
So was Haeger, the player, whose career statistics as both hitter and pitcher would be more than enough to define her Gator greatness. But even her loftiest numbers are no match for the fact she is one of only two athletes — male or female, amateur or professional — to play a bat and ball sport and club at least 60 home runs as a hitter and win at least 60 games as a pitcher.
Two. Ever.
The other is Babe Ruth.
Lauren Haeger, with two of her four dogs (Daisy on the left, Bronco on the right), now lives in Charlotte and tutors young softball players.
Haeger smashed 71 homers and won 73 games during her four stellar UF seasons, the final two ending with WCWS titles. Walton called on Haeger to start Game 2 in the 2014 title series against Alabama. Haeger was the pitcher of record in a 6-3 victory, with Rogers coming in late to get the save.
Her senior season was one of the greatest ever by a collegian, and also ended with a dog pile in Oklahoma City. Haeger, crowned 2015 NCAA Player of the Year and SEC Female Athlete of the Year, went a sparkling 32-2 in the circle, including a program-record 24 consecutive victories, to go with a career-low 1.58 ERA. In the NCAA Tournament, Haeger went 8-1 in the circle and hit .433 with 19 RBI and four homers, and was the winning pitcher in both games of the Gators' best-of-three championship series defeat of Michigan.
Haeger's career as a Gator, simply put, was Ruthian.
Now comes an orange-and-blue exclamation point in her post-career. She's watched a bunch of celebrity "Two Bits" videos to get the routine down, but doesn't plan to put any softball spin on the routine. As Haeger put it, she'll keep it "OG." And that'll work just fine.
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