Marissa Young helped Duke softball make history — and that's only part of her story

Editor’s note: This story was originally posted before Duke’s elimination game against Alabama. It has been updated after the Blue Devils were eliminated from the 2024 Women’s College World Series.

OKLAHOMA CITY — Duke coach Marissa Young kept looking over the Blue Devils’ dugout. But she couldn’t spot her husband, James Lamar, anywhere in the stands.

The Blue Devils softball team was playing in the biggest game of the program’s short history against Stanford in the 2023 super regionals. A travel softball coach himself who coached their two daughters and several of Duke’s players in high school, Lamar wouldn’t have missed it. And yet, he wasn’t there.

Young sensed something was wrong. But she also had a game to coach — not knowing how her life was about to change.

A year later, on the opening day of the Women’s College World Series on Thursday, Young scoured the stadium again — searching for Lamar. This time, she finally found him by the third inning, seated in a wheelchair on the concourse of the first-base side.

“Softball has been our life since we met,” Young told ESPN on Friday morning. “He’s a big reason why I’m here as a coach. He’s been our biggest fan and super invested. I’m just glad that he was able to enjoy and experience this with us. … Just really special.”

A former star pitcher at Michigan, Young is now a rising star in coaching. Duke hired her in 2015 to launch its softball program. The Blue Devils started playing games in 2018. Three years later, she stunningly had them in the postseason.

This year, Young guided Duke to its first WCWS appearance, becoming the first Black head coach to reach Oklahoma City.

And she did it while mothering her four children and caring for her husband, who’s been fighting for his life and health since last year’s super regional.

“One of the strongest women I’ve ever met,” said Duke ace Cassidy Curd, who played for Lamar in high school. “She shows up to the field with a smile on her face, gives us her full attention. … It’s super inspiring.”

Before Duke’s second super regional game last year, Lamar began feeling ill, thinking he was suffering from pneumonia again after a previous bout with it. The couple’s eldest son, Braylon, took him to the emergency room. But Lamar didn’t want to distract Young or the Blue Devils, so he didn’t tell the rest of the family that he was in the hospital until after the game.

After Stanford eliminated the Blue Devils, Young was told the news and rushed to the hospital. It turned out that Lamar had suffered a heart attack that caused numerous other health issues. He was put on life support and underwent too many surgeries to count. Eventually, he received heart and kidney transplants. He remained in the hospital for months. Young spent the fall away from the team so that she could be by Lamar’s side before returning in time for the season.

“We leaned into our faith,” said Young, who listened to gospel music to keep her hopes up and took 30-minute walks around campus to keep her sanity. “Obviously being at Duke with such an incredible medical team was a part of it and just leaning on our family. My parents were tremendous, really taking care of our kids so that I could be at the hospital around the clock to help take care of James. But it was really, really tough. … [It] still is tough.”

Young missed her players, and she missed coaching. But Young is tough as her players pointed out. Oklahoma coach Patty Gasso, whose Sooners defeated Duke in Game 1 of the WCWS, also saw that toughness when she recruited Young out of California 25 years ago.

“I knew she was going to be really special because she just was a real competitor,” Gasso said of Young, who was the 2003 Big Ten Player of the Year. “But to me, it’s more than softball. She’s just a great example of a woman battling for her family, battling for her team. So I respect what she’s done through all that to still get her team here.”

The Blue Devils came far. The same can be said for Young and Lamar. The two met shortly after college. She was about to go play pro softball in Texas. Her job threw her a going-away party. Lamar happened to be there, and the two immediately hit it off.

Young had plans to go to law school and become an attorney. But Lamar convinced her to go into coaching instead. When their daughters were old enough to play softball, she returned the favor and told him to quit coaching football so he could coach their softball teams instead. Eventually, Lamar became coach of the Lady Dukes, an 18U traveling softball team. Their oldest daughter Layla, now a high school senior, is headed to Florida to play softball; their other daughter Jolyna, a high school junior, is committed to UCLA — both the Bruins and Gators are in this WCWS, as well. Their son Braylon is a walk-on linebacker at Miami; their other son, Kayden, is in eighth grade.

After deciding with her assistant coaches which pitcher to throw in Friday night’s elimination game against Alabama, Young went to get Lamar and bring him into the hotel lobby.

Lamar hadn’t seen the Blue Devils play in person this season until the ACC tournament earlier this month. This week, he got on a plane for the first time in more than a year, even though he’s still undergoing treatment to restore his circulation. This summer, he’s scheduled to undergo a bilateral heel reconstruction, an extremely rare procedure.

When asked what it means to be in Oklahoma City for his wife, after she had been there for him throughout this last year, he couldn’t fight back his emotions.

“That game meant more than a game to me and to her,” he said, wiping the tears away from his face with Young seated to his right. “She was there for me every step of the way. Lifted me out of bed. Rolling me in the showers. … there’s no words what that game meant to me. Seeing some of these kids that I coached, it was like everything in life came full circle. Just couldn’t have written a better script for a movie.”

The Blue Devils’ own movie script finally came to an end Friday night with a loss to Alabama. But Lamar was there to see every pitch. Experiencing the moment with Young again.

“Win or lose, we’ve already won,” he said. “I could care less what the score is. My family has won.”