Softball star Hailey Morrow was walking through the BYU bookstore on campus one day when, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a young girl wearing her No. 20 jersey.
“I had to do a double-take,” Morrow said. “I was like, ‘There’s no way that this little 8-year-old girl is wearing my jersey.’ It was super cool.”
The youngster told the middle infielder who amazingly began her BYU career as a catcher after being recruited to Provo as a shortstop — more on that in a bit — that she was her favorite player. Morrow, a senior who graduated Thursday with a degree in exercise and wellness, got to talk to the young fan and her family. Then they took some pictures together.
“That’s one of the coolest experiences I have had at BYU,” she told the Deseret News Thursday. “It is moments like that where you realize the impact you have and how you are able to inspire the younger generation and the little girls that look up to us. I will remember that for the rest of my life.”
One of the coolest things about BYU is that you don’t have to choose between the sport that you love and your Savior, Jesus Christ. You can have both. I have had so many cool opportunities to strengthen my faith and relationship with Christ. That’s something that I’ll always carry with me, and can take with me after I graduate, after my sport ends.
— BYU softball star Hailey Morrow
In addition to starring for the softball team the past four years, the Las Vegas native has served as president of the BYU Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) the past two years, and was the service-based organization’s secretary before that.
Morrow is one of 124 BYU current and former student-athletes who graduated Thursday as part of the class of 2026, and one of five softball players. Other softball players graduating between last December and this coming August are Hina Huber (exercise science), Jaelyn Lambert (physical education teaching/coaching), Miranda Mansfield (communications studies) and Lily Owens (political science).
“My BYU experience, on and off the softball field, has changed my life,” Morrow said.
BYU’s softball and baseball players weren’t able to participate in graduation and convocation ceremonies Thursday and Friday because softball was playing a three-game series against Utah in Salt Lake City and baseball was playing a three-game series against Arizona in Tucson.
However, the players were honored Wednesday night at the annual student-athlete banquet; one of the speakers was former BYU quarterback Max Hall, who got his degree this year after concluding his playing career in 2009.
“That was kind of our graduation (ceremony). Credit to BYU athletics for putting it together,” Morrow said. “It was super awesome. We still got to celebrate with each other; it was a lot of fun.”
BYU student-athletes gather to serve
Morrow said a big part of what made her off-the-field experience at BYU so great was her involvement in SAAC. One of her duties as president was to plan and execute a service opportunity for all student-athletes in which nearly 300 shoes were made for children in Uganda by tracing, cutting and assembling old jeans and donated denim fabric.
The denim was then attached to rubber tires and turned into shoes for kids in the East African country who suffer from different types of foot diseases.
“It was a life-changing experience, not just because we were able to have that type of impact for those kids, but serving together as athletes was so powerful and so unifying,” Morrow said. “It was a reminder that when athletes come together, we can do amazing things on and off the field.”
Morrow’s education at BYU is not over. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in exercise and wellness, with a minor in healthcare leadership, she will pursue an MBA online with hopes of getting into athletic administration and coaching.
“I would love to work in senior leadership at the collegiate level,” she said. “I have had so many experiences that have changed my life, and I’ve been able to develop lifelong relationships. I think that’s what it ultimately comes down to. The people and the relationships that I’ve formed at BYU will last forever.”
Memorable moments continue for Morrow
It has been a rough and injury-filled season for BYU softball — Morrow herself recently sustained a fractured arm when she was hit by a pitch at Texas Tech — but Morrow said she will always remember the big wins, including one last year against Utah when the Cougars overcame a 13-9 deficit in the seventh inning and walked off the Utes in the eighth, 14-13.
“Despite being way down, there was a sense of calmness that we knew we were going to come back,” she said. “I just remember a senior (Lily White) walked it off, and that was the coolest feeling in the entire world. Every time I go back and watch the video, I get chills. I get chills thinking about it now. That was probably my favorite moment on the field.”
She said that being able to worship and follow Jesus Christ at the private school supported by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has also helped define her four years in Provo. She’s grateful that the team doesn’t play or practice on Sundays, a day of rest for all BYU students, not just athletes.
“One of the coolest things about BYU is that you don’t have to choose between the sport that you love and your Savior, Jesus Christ,” she said. “You can have both. I have had so many cool opportunities to strengthen my faith and relationship with Christ. That’s something that I’ll always carry with me, and can take with me after I graduate, after my sport ends.
“BYU has taught me that there’s more to life than athletics, and that character is so huge, and your relationship with Christ is so important,” she continued. “Because that knowledge is going to be with me forever.”
Why Morrow committed to BYU at age 12
Speaking of forever, it seems like that was how long it took for Morrow to get to BYU after she committed to coach Gordon Eakin as an eighth-grader at Academy Sky Point charter school before moving on to a standout prep career at Shadow Ridge High in southern Nevada.
Now, coaches cannot have contact with prospects until after their sophomore years (June 15). But back then, it was happening all over the country, and Eakin had seen Morrow play at a BYU summer camp and was eager to get a commitment. Morrow quickly agreed to become a Cougar — in six years.
“I knew from a really young age that BYU was my dream school, and I’m just super thankful that the coaches were willing to take a chance on a 12-year-old,” she said. “Now as a senior, looking back on my whole journey, it has been a dream come true. That I have been able to wear the ‘Y’ on my chest has meant everything to me. I wouldn’t change it for the world. I have no regrets. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.”
Morrow’s cousins — Madelynne Taggart (track), Harrison Taggart (football) and Kylie Buttars (incoming volleyball player) — have followed her to BYU, although Harrison now plays football for Utah State. The daughter of Jon and Heather Morrow of Las Vegas, Morrow also has a hero — her little sister who has Down Syndrome. Hailey Morrow is ambidextrous, with the ability to play every sport except softball lefthanded.
“My cousins, we all grew up together and have been super close, so it is cool that we are living our dreams together, here in college,” she said.
Shortstop becomes a catcher, then a willing pinch runner
Some six and a half years after committing to BYU, Morrow was driving back to Provo during her freshman year after Christmas break and got a call from Eakin, who asked her to swing by the Indoor Practice Facility to chat as soon as she got back to campus.
Morrow had been recruited as a shortstop, and that was the position she played in the fall of 2022 as the Cougars practiced and played exhibition games. Eakin said he needed her to move to catcher, because no fewer than three catchers the Cougars were planning to use in the 2023 season were out due to shoulder and back injuries.
“It was unprecedented,” Eakin told the Deseret News at the time. “It forced us to figure something out.”
They concluded that if any player on the team could make the big switch, it was Morrow.
“Coaches told me that they had no choice but to convert a position player into a catcher, and I was that lucky person,” Morrow said. “I had never caught a day in my life, and we were 25 days out from our first game … So long story short, I played my first college game in a position I had never played before, and that ended up being one of the highlights of my career.”
Morrow picked it up so well that she was named WCC Freshman of the Year in 2023, starting in all but one of BYU’s 52 games.
She also played catcher in 2024 before the Cougars got deeper at that spot and she was moved back to middle infielder.
Which brings us to the weekend of April 4. As No. 2 Texas Tech was sweeping BYU by a combined score of 33-6, Morrow was nailed in the arm by a pitch, and for all intents and purposes her season, and career, should have been over.
“I knew right away that my arm was broken. It broke in two places,” she said. “My (hitting and fielding) career ended a little bit earlier than I had planned.”
Alas, Morrow refused to give up playing entirely. She remained on the team, and on April 17 against Iowa State, Eakin put her into the game as a pinch runner. She was able to cross the plate to cut the deficit to a run in a game the Cougars eventually won, 6-5.
“That was super cool, because even though my role has changed, I still felt like I was out there doing everything I could for the team, contributing in any way that I could,” she said. “That is a moment I will have forever.”
Just like her time at BYU — on and off the field.
