NiJaree Canady - College softball's first million-dollar player - ESPN

Editor's note: This story was originally posted on May 16, 2025, before Texas Tech hosted the Lubbock Regional. With Texas Tech moving on in the 2025 WCWS, we have updated it.

LUBBOCK, Texas — Last July, pitcher NiJaree Canady shook college sports when she announced her transfer to Texas Tech and landed the richest softball NIL deal ever.

The reigning USA Softball National Player of the Year bolted from the hallowed halls of Stanford, where she had become a superstar after piloting the Cardinal to two straight Women's College World Series appearances, finishing in the final four teams both times. Her new home would be on the arid plains of West Texas at a school that had never won a conference title and had won just 49% of its games — and 31% of its league games since the advent of the Big 12.

The transfer was met with awe: The Matador Club, Texas Tech's NIL collective, made a historic play for Canady, offering a one-year, $1,050,024 contract (a million for Canady, $50k for living expenses, $24 for her jersey number).

Just more than a month after Red Raiders coach Gerry Glasco — who was hired from Louisiana on June 20, three days after Canady had entered the portal and started lining up visits — arrived in Lubbock, he landed the most valuable player in the country. He did it by pulling out all the stops, including recruiting calls from quarterback Patrick Mahomes to Canady, a Kansan who is a devoted Kansas City Chiefs fan.

Glasco, who didn't have much in the way of NIL in Lafayette, had suddenly walked into what he believed was the best softball situation in America. Two of the Matador Club's biggest boosters — Tracy Sellers, a former Tech softball player, and her husband, John, an oil and gas executive and former Red