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Three-time All-American Maya Brady agrees to join professional softball draft

by:Alex Byington•01/28/25•

_AlexByington

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(Photo by Katharine Lotze/Getty Images)

UCLA shortstop Maya Brady, a three-time All-American, will reportedly join the burgeoning Athletes Unlimited Softball League before its inaugural draft Wednesday night, according to ESPN insider Jeff Passan.

The 23-year-old Brady, the niece of legendary former NFL quarterback Tom Brady, is one of college softball’s biggest stars after earning first-team All-American honors in 2021, 2023 and 2024, as well as being named back-to-back Pac 12- Player of the Year as a left-handed slugger.

The Athletes Unlimited Softball League is run by former Miami Marlins general manager Kim Ng and will feature four eams playing a 30-game schedule across six-to-eight cities over the summer. Those four teams — the Bandits, Blaze, Talons and Volts — will participate in a draft Wednesday where each team will select a dozen players to fill out their 16-woman roster that will include one free agent and three players from college softball’s Class of 2025.

Along with Maya Brady, the inaugural AUSL draft will also feature fellow UCLA alums in two-way Bruins star Rachel Garcia and right-hander Megan Faraimo, former Alabama ace Montana Fouts, former Florida outfielder Amanda Lorenz, former Oklahoma infielder Tiare Jennings and British right-hander and South Florida alum Georgina Corrick. Brady opted to join the start-up league that includes softball legends Lisa Fernandez (Talons) and Cat Osterman (Volts) as team general managers, with fellow former softball stars Jennie Finch and Jessica Mendoza as advisors.

Brady, the niece of Tom Brady and former Boston Red Sox legend Kevin Youkilis, wrapped her UCLA career after hitting .384 with a .464 on-base percentage and .757 slugging percentage while hitting 71 home runs and 246 RBIs over 249 career games in Los Angeles.

Passan pointed out the AUSL is hoping to find more success than National Pro Fastpitch, which disbanded in 2021, and two other four-team leagues, Women’s Professional Fastpitch and Association of Fastpitch Professionals, which played in the summer of 2024.

“Softball is poised for tremendous growth at the professional level, and the AUSL is meeting the moment by creating the action-packed, world-class softball league that this sport has deserved for so long,” Ng said in a statement to ESPN. “The caliber of players vying to be drafted tomorrow — Olympians, Team USA veterans, All-Americans and NCAA champions — further exemplifies that the world’s best players are here together as a unit of founding members who will make the AUSL the next big thing in women’s sports.”

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