More than Tom Brady's niece - Meet UCLA softball standout Maya Brady

CLEARWATER, Fla. — There is a photo that UCLA coach Kelly Inouye-Perez still has, one that remains highly sentimental, because it helps explain how the Bruins landed one of their future superstars.

A superstar who happens to have a famous superstar uncle or two.

In the photo, 9-year-old Maya Brady stands front and center in UCLA gear, smiling big. The entire team, dressed in uniform, smiles all around her. Inouye-Perez is off to one side of the photo. Maya's «Uncle Tommy» Brady is in the photo too, off to the left.

Maya Brady fell in love with UCLA softball after watching the Bruins win the Women's College World Series in 2010. Already a talented softball player in her own right, Brady zeroed in one player in particular: freshman outfielder B.B. Bates, a player who looked like her, inspiring her to believe it was possible that she, too, could play at UCLA one day.

She attended a summer softball camp at UCLA, and then her travel ball coach, Mike Stith, arranged to take young Brady to a game and a meet-and-greet with the team. Her mom, Maureen, sister and uncle (yes that Tom Brady) came on the visit with her, and she finally had the chance to meet her role model.

«I remember being so nervous because it was my first UCLA game that I had ever gone to,» Brady says now. «I was that shy little 9-year-old kid that the coaches would ask questions to, and I would just smile and look at my mom because I couldn't even speak.

»My uncle Tommy was with me because he had moved to L.A. at the time and UCLA was right next to his house, so we wanted him to go with us to make it even more special for me."

Brady had already made an impression on the UCLA coaches without even knowing it. Inouye-Perez remembers a play Brady made during a