Million Dollar Pitching Star Makes National Impact During Texas Tech Historical Postseason Run

The Red Raiders are making history in their debut trip to Oklahoma City for Women’s College World Series (WCWS) and NiJaree Canady is a big part of this historic run. 

Texas Tech is headed to the national championship series and this is the first time in WCWS history that a program has made it this far in their debut trip to OKC since the Oklahoma Sooners did it in 2000 per Brad Crawford with CBS Sports.

The team that the Red Raiders just beat to advance: the Oklahoma Sooners. The Raiders were also on a 37-game losing streak to the Sooners prior to their game Monday. They punched their ticket to the title game with a 3-2 win. By the time Canady left the pitching circle the Sooners had only five total hits.

The second Canady hit the transfer portal Texas Tech made her their main priority. She started her collegiate career with the Stanford Cardinals and she decided to pursue other programs for the rest of her career.

Texas Tech’s NIL Collective, offered her a one-year $1,050,24 contract just three days after she had entered the portal stated by Canady in an interview with Dave Wilson on ESPN. Canady also made it clear in her interview that if she didn't believe in the program she wouldn't have moved to Lubbock.

"I feel like people thought I heard the number and just came to Texas Tech, which wasn't the case at all," said Canady and she also mentioned that she took over a month to think the contract over.

Canady went into a program that had only won 31% of its conference games since the start of Big12 Conference. By the end of league play this season they were the conference champions for the first time in program history.

Canady is the USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year for many reasons. With the Red Raiders she has a 30-5 record and an incredibly low 0.89 ERA as stated on the Red Raiders’ website.

Her list of accolades are lengthy including: NFCA First Team All-American (2024), PAC 12 Pitcher of the Year (2024), Women’s College World Series All-Tournament Team (2023,2024) among many, many other awards. 

While there is a lot of controversy surrounding NIL contracts Canady has showed that there are positives to letting players make money off their names as she put Texas Tech Softball on the map this year. Even if they do not win the title this year this has ultimately changed the program for the better.