RALEIGH, N.C. — When you look at the success Duke athletics has had in recent years, you can pinpoint a common source all of the university's programs have drawn inspiration from.
That source is former Duke University Vice President and Director of Athletics, Dr. Kevin White, who served the school for 13 years. When he joined the Blue Devils, the senior and executive staff included just one woman. Today, it features 10 women and five ethnic minorities.
However, if you look beyond the senior staff and into the coaching ranks, you'll find softball Head Coach Marissa Young, another individual who has fought for racial and social justice.
Both White and Young are the recipients of the 2023 ACC UNITE Awards, an honor given to two individuals at each member school of the ACC, who have made an impact in the areas of racial and social justice.
Young became Duke's first and only softball head coach in school history, as she has worked constantly to build one of the strongest softball programs in the ACC from the ground up, starting in 2015 when the program was born.
The softball team didn't play its first game until 2018, but that didn't mean Young wasn't benefiting her community. She is not only Duke's first-ever Black female head coach, but as of 2020, she was one of just two Black Power-5 conference head softball coaches. In her role, she's spread diversity amongst her team by using different education and engagement initiatives.
Young has always wanted to be a head coach at the NCAA level, both coaching softball and helping young women grow, but she never expected to build a program from scratch, and at such a prestigious university.
"It wasn't what I had in mind," Young said. "But you know, everything in my life has groomed me to be ready for this moment."
Young came to Duke following a short stint as an assistant coach at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Prior to her experiences in North Carolina, Young spent time at Eastern Michigan, Concordia University, and was a three-time All-America selection as a pitcher at the Big Ten's University of Michigan. Since putting on the Duke blue, she has compiled a 165-85 overall record, winning the program's first ACC Championship title in 2021.
"Duke softball is my baby, but at the same time I also felt an enormous amount of pressure," Young said about her experience creating a softball program at the Division-one level. "All the decisions and everything, the foundation, was laid on me. And so many days, I'd go home and be like, 'Just don't screw up'."
Off the field, she has worked hard on creating a safe space for her players to grow as people. Following the events of the summer of 2020, Young decided to address racial and social inequality with her team, making sure her players both understood what was happening in the world, and how they as people, could affect positive change. She gave space to the five Black athletes on the team at the time to talk about their life experiences and the things they wanted their teammates to know.
"We really preach being vulnerable in our program," Young said. "We try to create opportunities where us as coaches are vulnerable with our players about things going on in our lives, and we want the same from them."
Beyond how she handles conversations inside the clubhouse, Young also stresses the need to grow the game, both for players and coaches who are or aren't affiliated with Duke.
"I'm super thankful that [softball] has been a part of my family since day one," Young said. "I'm trying to do everything I can do to open doors for players and other communities to have access to the game of softball and then also for college players and young players that want to get into coaching, that we open up doors for them as well."
Duke's 2024 softball season will begin in Mexico in the Puerto Vallarta College Challenge on Feb. 8 against Oklahoma. The team went 48-12 last season, finishing with an elimination from the NCAA Super Regional round of the NCAA Tournament.