Wayland High School grad Jessica Merchant has been elevated from assistant to associate varsity softball coach at Stanford University, with her position now being funded by an anonymous donor.
Merchant was an All-American shortstop for NCAA champion University of Michigan in 2005 and since then has been coaching at several schools at the collegiate level.
She earned 11 varsity letters at Wayland, four each in both basketball and softball, and three more in volleyball and earned numerous athletic accolades, including Michigan Gatorade Player of the Year in Softball, Detroit Free Press Scholar Athlete, and OK Gold Conference Athlete of the Year. In softball, she was also selected twice to the All-State first team.Collegiate years[edit]
She played softball at the University of Michigan under head coach Carol Hutchins from 2002 to 2005. As a junior in 2004, she was named Big Ten Player of the Year.[6] As a senior, she was captain of Michigan’s 2005 team that won the 2005 Women’s College World Series.
She was a second-team NFCA All-American in 2004, a third-team All-American in 2005, and a first-team NFCA All-Great Lakes Region player in 2003, 2004, and 2005. She was also named Big Ten Player of the Year (softball) in 2004.[4]
After the 2005 season, Merchant played on the USA Elite Team that won the 2005 Intercontinental Cup in Madrid, Spain. She compiled a .500 batting average and eight RBIs at the International Cup and was named the Most Valuable Player of the tournament.[4]
Merchant remains one of Michigan’s all-time leaders in games played – career (254 – 4th), doubles – career (48 – 6th), home runs – career (49 – 3rd), slugging percentage – career (.595 – 5th), runs – season (67 – tied for 2nd), home runs – season (21 – tied for 2nd), RBIs – season (63 – 5th).
She was selected by the New England Riptide in the 2005 NPF Senior Draft.[4] She played four years of professional softball in the NPF league and compiled a .354 batting average for the Connecticut Brakettes with 12 home runs and 31 RBIs in 113 at bats. She was named NPF Offensive Player of the Year in 2006.[4][7]
After serving as a volunteer coach at Michigan under Hutchins, Merchant was hired as an assistant coach in 2006 under Elaine Sortino at the University of Massachusetts.[8] In four years at UMass, she helped guide the team to a 164-47-2, four Atlantic 10 championships, and four NCAA tournament appearances.[2]
Merchant was hired as an assistant softball coach under Jessica Allister at the University of Minnesota in 2010. In her first year at Minnesota, the Golden Gophers nearly doubled their win total from the prior year. In 2012, she helped the infielders to a fielding percentage of .971, the best fielding percentage for any infield in the Big Ten Conference.[2] In her final season with the Gophers in 2017, the team had its best season in program history, compiling a record of 56-5 and winning the Big Ten regular season and tournament titles.
After McAllister departed for Stanford, she joined the staff there as an assistant coach until being elevated to associate coach.
