Former Arizona softball All-American Susie Parra to be inducted into Pac-12 Hall of Honor

Former Arizona pitcher Susie Parra will be inducted into the Pac-12 Hall of Honor on Mar. 3, 2023 during a ceremony held at the Pac-12 Women’s Basketball Tournament in Las Vegas, Nev. the conference announced on Thursday. Although the ceremony will be private, the honorees will be recognized at halftime of the day’s first semifinal game at the Michelob ULTRA Arena.

During most of her four years with Arizona softball (1991-94), Parra was considered one of the best players on the best team in the country. She and the Wildcats won three national championships and she was personally honored as an All-American three times. In the Pac-10, the team won two championships and she won the Pac-10 Player of the Year award as a senior.

That same year, Parra was awarded the national player of the year honor and the Honda Broderick Cup. She was the first Wildcat to be crowned national player of the year.

Parra has mind-boggling numbers. She went 101-9 as a pitcher, giving her a career winning percentage of .918. That is still the third-highest career winning percentage in NCAA history.

Parra’s career ERA was 0.63. She struck out 874 batters in 780 innings, an average of 1.12 per inning pitched. She shut out her opponent 61 times and threw eight no-hitters.

The 2023 Pac-12 Hall of Honor class will consist entirely of female athletes as part of the conference’s year-long celebration of Title IX. Other inductees are Jackie Johnson-Powell of Arizona State, Dr. Luella Lilly of California, Ceal Barry of Colorado, Janie Takeda Reed of Oregon, Dr. Mary Budke of Oregon State, Jessica Mendoza of Stanford, Natalie Williams of UCLA, Barbara Hallquist DeGroot of USC, Kim Gaucher of Utah, Danielle Lawrie of Washington, and Sarah Silvernail of Washington State.

Last June marked the 50th anniversary of Title IX, the law that sought to make access to education available to women and girls in the same way it was available to men and boys. Although it went far beyond sports—striving to guarantee things like access to education for pregnant and married students and access to courses of study that had previously been closed to female students—most people know of the law because it also had provisions guaranteeing female athletes the same opportunities in college that male athletes had.