Nebraska Cornhuskers softball

Early success Nebraska's softball program began in 1976 as a club sport and was officially sanctioned as a varsity sport in 1977 in the wake of Title IX. Don Isherwood led the program in its early years but was fired in 1980 as the university wanted a head coach with a college degree. NU hired Nancy Plantz, who led the Cornhuskers to the inaugural NCAA Division I Women's College World Series in 1982 (in its early years the tournament was held in Omaha, longtime host of the College World Series, meaning NU played the WCWS less than fifty miles from its Lincoln campus). Plantz's tenure ended in a disastrous 1983 season that was cut short by the university after player walkouts and a last-place conference finish. Nebraska was nearly unable to field a team in 1984 before hiring former NAIA Coach of the Year Wayne Daigle to lead the program. NU was ineligible for postseason play in 1986, which would be Daigle's last season at Nebraska. He resigned and returned to Texas, where he coached high school softball for the remainder of his career. Athletic director Bob Devaney named pitching coach Ron Wolforth Daigle's successor. Wolforth led Nebraska back to the WCWS in each of his first two seasons, its fourth and fifth appearances in the event's first seven years. Wolforth's teams were less successful in the later years of his tenure and he grew weary of the NCAA's increasingly stringent rules and guidelines. Nebraska won at least fifty games in each of the next three seasons, culminating in another WCWS appearance in 2002. NU's run of twelve consecutive top-twenty-five national finishes ended in 2007, and the following year the program missed the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1994. NU reached the WCWS in its second season in the Big Ten, the same year Revelle won her 768th game to pass former baseball coach John Sanders for the most victories by any coach at the university. Nebraska won the Big Ten for the first time in 2014. In 2019, Revelle was placed on paid administrative leave after allegations she harassed and emotionally abused players, but was reinstated after investigation without further punishment. Revelle won her 1,000th game at Nebraska in 2021. ==Conference affiliations==