How OU softball's Alyssa Brito is encouraging girls to remain involved in sports

NORMAN — It’s easy to think softball comes naturally for Alyssa Brito.

The third baseman’s smile beams regularly when she’s on the field for OU, and is the spark plug for a team with a chance to win a fourth consecutive Women’s College World Series championship.

But when Brito was 11, she sat in a car with her mother, Tracy, on the way home from a tournament.

Brito was spending more time on the bench than on the field and in the lineup and she wondered if it was time to find something else to do with her time.

“If you feel like this isn’t what you want to do, then that’s OK,” Tracy told her daughter. “But I believe in you. … You are having fun. Just enjoy what you’re doing and don’t put so much pressure on it. You may not be getting all the success and you’re not turning into the player you want to be.”

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The conversation was a turning point for Alyssa, who quickly blossomed into one of the best players her age in the country.

“She really spoke life into me,” Alyssa said. “At the time, I didn’t realize how important that was but she encouraged me. … That was kind of the low moment, but a great turning point in my life, because you know what, this is supposed to be fun and I’m supposed to be enjoying this.”

That moment is part of the reason why Brito is one of the faces of SURGE — strength, unity, resilience, growth, equity — a program from sports apparel company BSN Sports which “aims to empower fields to stay in sports and lead health, successful lives.”

The program provides free online tools to coaches to help them develop self-esteem, instill confidence and prioritize mental health in their female athletes.

The program was launched in March but its origins are about six years old.

“We were doing really great with all the boys teams but we had a big opportunity to think about how we can better service the girls teams,” said Susan Riley, BSN Sports’ Senior Director of Brand Marketing. “We were hearing from a lot of coaches … that they just weren’t getting great turnout at tryouts. Like at a boys basketball tryout in high school, they’d get 120 boys showing up but 25 girls.”

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By age 14, girls start dropping out of sports at twice the rate of boys, according to the Women’s Sports Foundation.

BSN already did coaching curriculums, webinars and live coaching clinics but through the COVID-19 pandemic, the education focus broadened beyond just Xs and Os.

“Our mission is to give coaches tools, and we’re realizing parents could use it too, and just broadly sports programs, how to address the issues,” Riley said. “It all comes down to building confidence, how to address body image, leadership skills and tailoring it for girls that are in that challenging stage of life, age 11 to 18 to keep them in sports.”

Brito is one of three brand ambassadors for SURGE, joining Duke track athlete Emily Cole and Texas volleyball player Keonilei Akana.

“I just kind of really loved their values and how they really prioritized really investing in young girls who grow up to be women in sports,” Brito said. “I think it’s so important to continue to push girls and allow them to give the resources to coaches and to other mentors in that aspect because it was crazy seeing some of the stats that they gave me.”

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Brito’s dad, Brandon, also had a big part in keeping her involved.

“He’s been just the ultimate coach in my life,” Brito said. “To this day, he gives me those little cues and he knows my swing probably just as good as anyone else.”

It wasn’t just Brito’s parents who helped her remain involved in softball.

She also cited Mark Cambell, who coached her in both travel ball with the OC Batbusters in high school.

“That was just such a blessing,” Brito said of Campbell, who died in 2019. “He was such a huge part in my recruiting process and he was the guy that spoke on behalf of me to these college coaches. I would not have gotten my commitment to Oregon without him and just the way he spoke so highly of me but just the way that he constantly pushed me. He just never let me settle. It’s him and Mike Stith that had that mentality from such a young age.”

Brito started her college career at Oregon before transferring to OU in 2022.

“It wasn’t until junior year (of high school) when I really just saw that spark in me and things started to click,” Brito said. “I started to have a lot of confidence. I started to find my identity of who I was and what type of player I was going to be. That was the passion that you guys see now and just the hardworking, grind that mentality kind of developed that year. It was always there, but I had that confidence to just be who I was at that point and I really honestly would’ve have chalked it up to any physical change.

"It was just a mentality and a mindset shift for me that junior year where I was like, ‘This is going to be fun. I can finally see who I am as a player.’”

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When the Sooners were in Cathedral City, California, in late February for the Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic, they were treated like rockstars.

After their win over San Diego State on Feb. 24, fans — mostly young girls — were lined up seven or eight deep to get autographs.

“It’s so cool to see, and it’s overwhelming but it’s a really cool overwhelming feeling,” Brito said. “Because you’re like, ‘Wow, these girls watch us and they want to be us and they want to be in that role just like I was then.’ They have these dreams and they’re seeing the dreams become a reality through us. I’ve never seen anything like it. … I think it makes our sport so personal.”

Then Brito got another jolt when she watched the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament this season and the buzz surrounding Iowa star Caitlin Clark.

“I’ve seen her step on the sideline and giving autographs to young boys,” Brito said. “That is so cool to me. I think we’ve seen that so much in softball as well. We have young boys seeing female athletes and they’re so amazed by them too. I think not just young girls how it’s inspiring but for the next generation of young men that see the value in women’s sports too and just having more of a partnership together in that.”

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OU softball's Alyssa Brito, SURGE encourage girls to remain in sports