All the Wright Stuff - Duke University (2024)

Duke softball senior pitcher Jala Wright was a diva at five years old. It’s 17 years later and nothing has changed except the slang used to describe the star’s presence on the field. Jala, nicknamed Slaaay-la by her teammates, remains a diva, slinging the ball from the circle with style, grace and confidence for the ACC champion Blue Devils.

“Five-year-old Jala was a sassy pants for sure,” said Wright when reflecting about her younger self. “She flipped her hair around, maybe did a cartwheel on the field here and there. She definitely had an attitude about her, but she was fun. She was just happy to hit the ball off the tee. Even though I don’t hit anymore it’s fun to sling my arm in the circle. I still flip my hair around. I still have an attitude on the mound. That’s exactly why they call me Slay-la because I’m still a diva. It’s the exact same, I’m just a little bit older.”

Wright, returning to her roots this season, is playing with that same freedom and love for the game she did as a little girl growing up in Charlotte, N.C. — minus the cartwheels of course. And she and the Blue Devils are thriving.

Starting 26 games for the 52-7 Blue Devils this season, Wright leads the ACC and ranks seventh among Division I pitchers with a 1.28 earned run average. With a variety of pitches in her arsenal, the fiery Wright has struck out 187 batters, most in the ACC, and won a career-high 19 games. Wright’s sustained success throughout the year earned her the ACC Pitcher of the Year honor in a unanimous vote by the league’s coaches and Duke’s first such recognition in seven years as a program.

While Wright steps into the circle with this infectious smile on her face and a lightness to her, it wasn’t always that way. The right-handed hurler has experienced her share of struggles on the field, especially last season, in which she admits she carried too much weight on her shoulders and sometimes did so unnecessarily.

“I think in years prior I carried the weight of the world on my shoulders,” Wright said. “Especially last year with Peyton St. George leaving I knew I had some big shoes to fill. And honestly, I let it get to me. I just knew I had to put the team on my back and that’s the last thing I have to do.”

Her numbers reflected that pressure as she ended the year with a 2.51 ERA, which didn’t even rank in the top 150 nationally, while going 12-4 for the Blue Devils. She pitched just three innings in Duke’s three ACC Championship games as Duke fell short to No. 3 Florida State in the title tilt. In the NCAA Regionals, Wright earned the wins against George Mason and Charlotte, pitching just 4.2 innings, and only saw an inning of work in the first of two losses to Stanford in the NCAA Super Regional.

Wright finished her junior season pitching 133.2 innings and walking 63 batters. A year later, with a fresh perspective, she has pitched 153.1 innings and given up only 48 bases on balls, while leading the Blue Devils to their second ACC title, a No. 10 seed in the NCAA Championship, a third straight trip to the Super Regionals and their first Women's College World Series appearance.

“I think definitely in years before I felt like I could not make a mistake at all,” Wright said. “I had to do every little thing. It just wasn’t fun. I would just be so mad at myself thinking I could have done more. But softball is a team sport and I think I have finally realized that this year with Team Seven.”

Speaking of Team Seven, it’s stacked with talent from the top to the bottom of the roster. The Blue Devils have the ACC Player of the Year in Claire Davidson, ACC Pitcher of the Year in Wright, ACC Defensive Player of the Year in Aminah Vega and head coach Marissa Young as the ACC Coach of the Year. Their softball ability is undeniable as is their absolute unabashed love for each other.

“I think this is our biggest senior class (in program history),” Wright said. “I feel like everyone is playing for them. Everyone wants to go out with a bang, and I think that’s helping the team. I think we just truly love each other as a team, and I don’t think that’s common on a lot of teams.”

With the team on paper almost the same as last year, what’s different for Wright? Sure, she added in the ability to work up in the zone to keep batters guessing, but most importantly, she has let all the other noise go and is embracing all the last moments she will have as a Blue Devil. She’s having fun again.

“I’ve definitely been working up in the zone,” Wright said about her pitching style this season. “People definitely know me as down, drop, changeup, make you chase in the dirt. They don’t expect the ball ever to go up past the belt so when I throw that it’s ‘Oh shoot.’ It’s just another tool to have in my toolbox.”

What’s changed for Wright on the mental side of the game? She has dedicated time this season to visualization, daily devotionals, practicing gratitude for all the small things in her daily life and perhaps most importantly finding that free spirit and swag five-year-old Jala had.

“First and foremost is my faith-based practice,” Wright said about her daily routine. “Every day I watch a sermon and then I also read my two devotionals every single day. I have gratitude notes in my app and every day I write down all of the good things I have happen to me. Even if only one thing happened, at least I have something to reflect on and something to look forward to.”

On game days, Wright continues her look inward and writes a love letter to herself when the team gathers for its pregame meeting. She also makes sure to visit her happy place — her parents. Whether in person or a simple phone conversation, talking with Jocqua Wright and Felicia Morings is her meditation, her “Zen place.”

“I visualize before every single game and I write a love letter to myself when we do our pregame meeting,” Wright said. “I have to do it every game just to hype myself up and say I’m proud of myself because if no one is going to be proud of me I’m going to be proud of me.”

There are of course at least 34 others who are fiercely proud of her — her 18 teammates, 12 coaches and support staff members and the proudest of all, her parents. They love Jala Wright as a softball player, a student and a person. We can’t leave out the fact she finished her last semester at Duke with all As in her classes.

It’s this village combined with Wright’s dedication to making sure the tiny details are taken care of that has allowed her to pitch with ease and flourish in her final season. From the code language she shares with her parents during games, especially in pressure situations, to the talented teammates she has behind her, Wright is playing as that “Free Swaggy Dog” motto the team has embraced in 2024.

“(Five-year-old Jala) was just so happy to see her family in the stands,” Wright said. “And what I’m so grateful for is I get to do that all over again. It’s the exact same. My parents don’t ever miss a game. Before every inning I look to my parents in the stands. I know where they’re sitting and they make sure they say to me, ‘Yo, Jala’ — they’ll call from wherever they’re sitting, to let me know that’s where they are.”

As she strides out to the circle, her dad will send her the hand signal to remind her to take a deep breath. Or she’ll look down and see PTB written on her glove. Pause. Think. Breathe. The moment she locks eyes with her parents, you see the release. Her shoulders drop, her face relaxes and any pressure she might have felt is gone.

The final piece to Wright’s success is head coach Marissa Young. One of the major reasons Wright became a Blue Devil after one season at Michigan State was the opportunity to play for a head coach who not only was an elite pitcher in her own right at Michigan but also is a Black woman in the sport of softball.

“I think less than 10 percent of (Division I) softball are Black girls and less than one percent are Black female pitchers,” Wright said. “So just hearing those numbers alone… and yes, I wanted to be in a community where someone did look like me whether it was the coach or maybe just one other player. So just to know I have a coach and several other players has definitely been instrumental in my career.”

Young has been able provide mentoring to Wright through so many different lenses — as an All-American pitcher herself, a woman with a strong faith in God and ultimately as a Black female athlete and everything that comes along with that.

“Coach used to say she used to go get her nails done all the time and that’s something I do now,” Wright said. “Also, faith-wise too. Coach Young always reminds me that God has a plan for me and that it’s going to happen whether I like it or not so just to go with the journey and not get in the way of it has been a key as well.”

Wright has embraced and taken to heart all the tough conversations she’s had with Young about being a Black female athlete. She has learned the importance of having poise inside the circle because Black women often aren’t offered the grace of being able to wear their emotions on their sleeve.

“Just having that knowledge that yes you can play with emotion, but you have to learn to have a stoic presence about yourself,” Wright said. “Or you have to learn to keep it contained, celebrate in the right way. Yes, you can be angry, but make sure you do it behind the scenes. That has definitely been key in my success.”

Young, through sharing her own stories from the past, also constantly reminds Wright and her teammates to enjoy all the moments and not just the softball ones because softball “is not the end-all be-all.”

Not a problem for Wright. She’s smiling, flipping her long braids around and cherishing every moment with her parents and 18 of her closest friends because they are her last in a Blue Devil uniform. And she just knows “these are the moments I’m going to tell my grandkids about.”