The goal of this team is to win, and we don’t care who gets it done. – Hannah Flippen
SALT LAKE CITY — When a star player doesn’t deliver, everybody notices.
Unless that star player happens to be two-time Pac-12 Softball Player of the Year Hannah Flippen.
“Whether she has a good day or a bad day, and she’s a great player so she has less bad days than the rest of us, you can’t tell by how she leads the team,” said Utah head coach Amy Hogue. “I remember a doubleheader in Palm Springs that we played in, and we killed a couple of teams. Hannah didn’t get a hit. She was like 0-for-9 or 0-for-10, and I had no idea her numbers were like that.”
She asked her assistants if they realized their best offensive player was shut out, and no one noticed.
“You can’t tell because she doesn’t act differently,” Hogue said. “As a matter of fact, if anything she gives more to her team because she knows she’s not contributing to the win with her play. It’s really incredible what she does.”
The second baseman's talent makes her a standout statistically, but her personality has made her a three-year captain for the nationally ranked program that will host an NCAA regional this weekend. Flippen led the Pac-12 with a .421 batting average and a .515 on base percentage. She also drove home 47 RBIs and led the Utes with 11 stolen bases. She had 10 home runs in the regular season and will finish her career at Utah as one of the most prolific offensive players to ever wear the red and white.
There isn’t much that Flippen can’t do, but for her teammates, its as much about who she is off the field as what she’s accomplished on the field.
“She’s just very optimistic,” said fellow senior and shortstop Anissa Urtez of why Flippen is such an effective leader. “She’s a hard worker. She’s compassionate. She has a lot of heart, and she’s a pusher. She’s always pushed me out on the infield. If I boot a ball, she’s always right there to pick me up, and we always have each other’s backs. I think it’s simply not a bond that can be broken.”
Flippen instills more than an affection amongst teammates. For her, the women she lives, trains and competes with are her sisters. She said her idea of how a team should feel comes from her own close-knit family. Her mom was her inspiration and her coach. They are both the only daughters in a large, athletic clan that includes her 93-year-old grandmother who watches the games online and then offers Hannah tips for improvement.
“I’m really close with my mom, my dad, brothers, my grandma and my uncle,” she said. “They’re all huge supporters of me.”
So when she came to Utah, she said, it was Hogue’s leadership and vision for the program, the lure of the Pac-12, and the familial atmosphere that convinced her to make a home on the hill.
“We had makeshift locker rooms, actually we had the old football locker rooms with donated carpet,” she said grinning and adding that one of the coaches had purchased a couple of couches to furnish the clubhouse. “My first year was when people could actually sit in the stands. Before that, they sat on the grass…So Everything was kind of pieced together a little bit more as the years went on. … But what drew me in was the coaching staff and how family-oriented they were. That’s what I’m all about is family, so that was huge.”
The California native comes by her talent naturally, as her mom, Mary Lou Flippen, was a two-time All-American at Utah State.
“I encouraged her,” she said of Hannah’s decision to choose Utah. “It’s a beautiful state, and I told her, ‘They’re in the Pac-12, and that’s one of the stronger, more competitive conferences.’” She said her daughter was “late in the game getting recruited. None of the other Pac-12 teams recruited her.”
That would be a decision they would come to regret as Flippen became a nightmare for pitchers and a playmaker in the field.
This year, Flippen said, it’s been easier to celebrate the heroics of her teammates in her senior season because, well, frankly there has been a lot to celebrate.
“The goal of this team is to win, and we don’t care who gets it done,” she said. “I don’t care if it’s a freshman, if it’s a sophomore, if it’s a junior, as long as we get it done, I’m good. … I think it’s definitely changed this year because our lineup is stacked. Everybody in the lineup can get it done.”
While some superstars might struggle to share the spotlight, Mary Lou Flippen said that’s just the way her daughter sees the game, including the individual accolades.
“I’m sure she’s happy about it,” she said of Hannah being named Pac-12 Player of the Year again. “But she also thinks there are other girls out there who are just as deserving as she is. Any of those girls she’s competed against for four years, I think she thinks they’re just as good and just as deserving. … I think she’d say she couldn’t have won it without the rest of her teammates.”
Most players who are blessed with both athletic talent and competitive drive struggled with the reality that many of their teammates lack both their abilities and/or commitment.
Not Hannah.
“I know (one player) can wreck (a team’s chemistry),” Hogue said. “I’ve seen it happen. And the fun thing about Hannah being our leader is that I can honestly say she’s never, in four years, wrecked our chemistry, ever. And I don’t think I’ve ever had a leader that has been capable of that. It’s why we have three captains. … She’s the ultimate team leader.”
Hogue believes Flippen’s unique ability to push herself while supporting her teammates comes from her parents — both their personalities and the way they raised her.
“Hannah competes with herself,” Hogue said, “which means she’s never satisfied. So she win the award last year, and I guarantee she had a list of things she didn’t accomplish in her mind and she started chipping away at those. Hence the reason she’s a two-time Player of the Year.”
Another unique Flippen dichotomy is her ability to be both never satisfied and constantly cognizant of the joy of the game.
“She just elevates every area that she is already good in because she’s too competitive not to be great,” Hogue said. “She’s got the chance to go in the pro league and Team USA, and she will not stop until she’s the best in all of those programs. And it will be fun to watch.”