Former Longhorn second basemen Janae Jefferson returns to Austin for professional softball journey

Janae Jefferson, former Texas second baseman, had solely left the Forty Acres for a 12 months earlier than deciding to return again to Austin, the place the place she made a reputation for herself with the Texas softball program. However this time, Jefferson will make her return to embark on her skilled softball journey. 

The Texas Smoke is a new skilled fastpitch softball group in Austin. When Jefferson obtained a proposal to affix their roster, there was by no means a doubt in her resolution.

Jefferson is a robust believer that recognition of ladies’s sports activities is severely missing. This, along with growing softball viewership, are a part of the explanation why she accepted her provide to play for the Texas Smoke. Nevertheless, the opposite a part of her resolution was to have a platform to encourage all younger feminine athletes who look as much as her as a task mannequin.

“I really feel like softball, typically, is rising, so I’m simply glad to be part of that development,” Jefferson mentioned to the Austin-American Statesman. “I feel, in a approach, girls’s (skilled) sports activities don’t actually get as a lot recognition as we should always and the advertising and marketing of ladies’s sports activities is just not actually on the market. So I’m simply doing this for the subsequent era that is available in, the little women that look as much as me now. I’m doing it for them.”

Jefferson was a extremely embellished participant as a scholar athlete at Texas. She was a four-time All-American infielder who set the college program report for each profession hits and batting common, with a .415, throughout her time as a Longhorn.

“I’m glad that I left that program higher than I discovered it,” Jefferson mentioned to Fox 7. “And undoubtedly ending up within the World Sequence, that was a giant aim of mine stepping foot on the Forty Acres. So, I feel I left my legacy for certain.”

Brandon Phillips, co-owner of the Texas Smoke, applauded Jefferson for each her defensive and hitting expertise. When in search of out gamers so as to add to the Smoke roster, Phillips knew that Jefferson’s qualities, each as a participant on the sector and an individual off the sector, have been going to be an ideal addition to the brand new group.

“That was my very first thing to do,” Phillips mentioned to Fox 7. “I needed to get the most well-liked particular person from Texas. And I really feel like Janae Jefferson is that particular person. It’s her swag. Her demeanor and the way in which she approaches the sport. That simply says champion.”

The Texas Smoke’s common season started on June 15 and can come to a detailed on Aug. 7. The playoff video games, that are nonetheless being decided, will probably be held on Aug. 11–13.