Tennessee softball has fielded some of the best players to play the game. Initially, under Karen and Ralph Weekly, the program blossomed into what people recognize today. It took players like the best in program history, Monica Abbott, to do what it took to build the standard and keep it to show anyone signing on to play at Tennessee what being a Lady Vol means.

In this week’s Big Interview on the Mike Keith Show, the all-time great sat down with Keith for a conversation that covered everything from her commitment to Tennessee, to her time as an Olympian and professional athlete. You can watch the interview in its entirety on Tennessee Athletics YouTube channel that is embedded above, but I wanted to pull just three parts to touch on.

Why she picked Tennessee and what she built there

When Abbott was being recruited out of Northern California, Tennessee softball didn’t have much history to show her. The Weeklys took over in 2002, and the Lady Vols had losing records in SEC play and had never made the postseason. Plenty of established programs wanted her. What stuck with her from her official visit was a football game against Florida, a Tennessee loss played in a downpour, and how many fans stayed in their seats.

“It poured the entire game, downpoured,” Abbott said. “And after the game, I remember we [Abbott and her parents] were on our way home. We looked at each other. Isn’t that crazy? How much it rained, how it poured and how many fans still were in Neyland Stadium till the fourth quarter. And I just remember thinking, I want to see that for softball.”

She also knew what the Weeklys could do, especially Ralph’s work with the USA national team, which was a goal of hers. She knew some of the players coming in with her, including Lindsay Schutzler, and she wanted the chance to start right away and build something. As a freshman in 2004, Abbott became Tennessee’s first softball All-American and was named SEC Pitcher of the Year and SEC Freshman of the Year. As a sophomore, she repeated as Pitcher of the Year and led Tennessee to its first Women’s College World Series in program history.

Abbott went 189-34 with a 0.79 ERA in four seasons at Tennessee. She threw 112 shutouts, 23 no-hitters and six perfect games and had 125 games with 10 or more strikeouts. Her 2,440 career strikeouts are the most in NCAA history, and she was the first pitcher in Division I history to strike out 500 batters in four different seasons. She also holds the NCAA record for career wins.

She led Tennessee to three straight Women’s College World Series from 2005 to 2007 and won 10 games in Oklahoma City, including the run to the national runner-up finish in 2007. Tennessee retired her No. 7 on March 23, 2013, while she was still pitching professionally. She won a silver medal with Team USA at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and went back to the Games 12 years later in Tokyo.

Karen Weekly kept pushing her to change

As dominant as Abbott was in college, she said she was afraid to mess with what was working. Karen Weekly kept after her about it until it got under her skin.

“I was so good at where I was, I was scared to take that next big step and make that jump to the next level on some of my pitches, because what if it didn’t work?” Abbott said. “What if I got worse? What if our team didn’t win? I was scared of that, but Karen really pushed me and was like, Monica, you have to try.”

Abbott said that mindset followed her through the rest of her career. She kept adjusting her pitches, her speed and her motion until she retired. It also shaped how she used what she had. She was a power pitcher who lived on the rise ball, and she said the drop ball and changeup were there to make the rise ball harder to hit, not to get outs on their own. Abbott said it took her two or three weeks to get comfortable with a pitch other than her fastball.

Karlyn Pickens and the pro game

Abbott lit up when Keith brought up Karlyn Pickens. Pickens broke Abbott’s Guinness World Record for pitch speed, then broke her own record with a 79.4 mph pitch on May 24, 2025, in Game 2 of the Knoxville Super Regional against Nebraska, with Jordy Bahl at the plate. The two have also worked together at Abbott’s events with young players. Pickens now pitches for the Carolina Blaze in the AUSL. That league exists because of the players who came before it, such as Abbott.

“The league that Karlyn plays in now, it was built on the backs of those Olympians, my teammates and I, that were grinding through these rough professional leagues in the United States,” Abbott said. “And the biggest thing I think now is with these big names like a Karlyn Pickens that makes groundbreaking news for speed records and being able to get NIL money, all those fans, those Tennessee fans are transferring with her to the Carolina Blaze and the AUSL.”

Abbott said social media has done a lot to grow the sport because fans connect with individual players. Some people will always pull for Tennessee no matter what. Others start out following a player like Pickens and become Tennessee fans because that’s where she played. Abbott played through the years when pro softball in the U.S. was a grind, so seeing Tennessee fans follow Pickens to the AUSL means something to her.

Abbott will be back on campus next week as the grand marshal for Tennessee’s homecoming parade.

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