Tom Brady reacts to niece, Maya, winning Pac-12 Softball Player of the Year

While Tom Brady has officially called it quits in the game of football, he’s officially one of the biggest cheerleaders for his niece, UCLA softball star Maya Brady. She’s built herself into one of the biggest brands in the world of women’s sports, and that’s not just simply because of her uncle. While having Tom Brady as an uncle doesn’t hurt, Maya Brady recently won Pac-12 Softball Player of the Year honors. Her uncle posted something about it on his Instagram story on May 10th.

Check out the screenshot below of Brady’s Instagram story.

“Amazing season,” Brady wrote on his IG story. “LFG.”

Maya Brady had a dominant 2023 campaign. She finished the regular season batting .456 with 16 home runs and 56 RBIs, the only player in the country with those numbers. She also became UCLA’s first Pac-12 Batting Champion since Kelli Godin did it in 2019. Brady is also in the hunt for the Pac-12 Triple Crown. She currently ranks second in home runs and RBIs, only three short of the leader in both stat categories.

She also leads the Pac-12 in a number of stat categories: hits (72), total bases (138), extra-base hits (31), on base percentage (.519), and slugging percentage (.873). Brady also ranks in the top 10 nationally in batting average (seventh), hits (ninth) and total bases (fourth). She also ranks 11th in the nation in slugging percentage and RBIs.

Maya Brady has also earned All-Pac-12 first team honors twice during her career (2021 and 2023). In bringing home Pac-12 Player of the Year honors, she became the ninth player in UCLA softball history to do so. She’s also one of 10 finalists for USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year honors.

In 2022, Brady became the first Bruin since Rachel Garcia to hit two home runs in a WCWS game when she left the yard twice against No. 1 Oklahoma in game one to force an “if necessary” game later that day.

She also hit for a .339 batting average and was second on the team with 15 home runs and 53 RBI. The California native was also a member of Team USA in the 2022 Japan All-Star Series.

Brady was a highly touted recruit coming out of Oaks Christian High School (Thousand Oaks, California)–the same high school that produced former Notre Dame football star Jimmy Clausen. In the 2020 class, she was rated as the No. 2 softball player in the nation, according to FloSoftball.

On3’s Jeremy Crabtree also contributed to this article.