”She wasn’t a mother figure, she became my mother,” said Walker.

After Walker ended a successful, two-season playing career in 1997, Joyce added her to the coaching staff as a student-assistant while she was simultaneously finishing her degree in criminal justice.

Joyce promoted Walker into a paid assistant in 2000, and the two built FAU Softball into one of the university’s most successful programs.

Together, they won 12 conference championships and appeared in the NCAA Tournament nine times, eight of which came consecutively.

Mickey Bell is one of the few people that had the opportunity to view Walker and Joyce, both as a player and colleague. Bell, now an assistant coach at Northern Illinois University, played catcher at FAU under Joyce and Walker from 2014-2016, before joining them on the coaching staff as a volunteer assistant in 2018.

“Their close connection and bond, other programs don’t have that,” said Bell. “Of course they’d pick at each other because they were both competitive but at the same time, you could see that mom-daughter connection and how unbreakable that was. When I was able to come on staff and see the other side of it, it was even more eye-opening.”

One of the numerous high-points in Joyce and Walker’s time coaching together came in 2015, when the Owls advanced to the regional round of the NCAA tournament for just the second time in program history. During that season is when Joyce tallied her 800th career win in a 18-0 blowout over Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, known as FAMU.

In similar fashion to the rest of her professional career, Joyce soon bested that achievement with an even more impressive one.

Last season, her 28th as head coach, FAU defeated the University of North Texas Mean Green 1-0, entering her into a club of 44 college softball coaches in history who’ve tallied 1,000 wins.

Eight days later, however, tragedy struck as Joyce died on March 26, 2022, at the age of 81.

Joyce died a trailblazer and an icon, and her passing left a noticeable void in the sports world as tributes and remembrances flooded in following the announcement of her death— even from the likes of the New York Times, Washington Post, and ESPN.

None of them were as qualified as Walker to speak of Joyce’s character.

“Humble and competitive. Usually you don’t find those two things in an athlete. You got some that are competitive, but they got the cockiness. Her humility was unmatched,” said Walker. “I always tell people, if you got to know her for five minutes, she was your friend for life. That’s just how she built relationships.”

The softball community felt the impact of Joyce’s death, but the season had to go on. About 13 hours after witnessing Joyce’s last moments at 10 p.m. on March 26, Walker, still raw with emotion, led the Owls onto the field for their 1 p.m. matchup with Western Kentucky University the next day.

“The thought never came to my mind, canceling that game. I think she would’ve haunted me for the rest of my life had I canceled that softball game,” remembered Walker. “She missed two of her niece’s weddings because they were in softball season, and she only has two nieces.”

FAU defeated the Hilltoppers in an emotional 3-2 victory, and three days later, Director of Athletics Brian White named Walker interim head coach.

With Walker as interim head coach, FAU went on to end the season with a winning record of 29-26, qualifying them for the (C-USA) Championship Tournament for the first time since 2018.

The Owls finished fifth in the conference under Walker’s guidance, falling to Western Kentucky in the C-USA Tournament, after experts projected them to finish last in the preseason poll.

Many, herself included, expected Walker to fill Joyce’s shoes and take over as full-time head coach; which she did receive an interview for.

The university disagreed, and on June 24, they announced the hiring of former Ohio State University assistant coach Jordan Clark as their second head softball coach in program history.

“Alumni and people that have been around the program, we all definitely thought it was going to be coach

Chan. So it was definitely a shock,” said Bell. “We’re all on the same page that we want to see the program do well, but we were for sure a little heartbroken about it.”

The university informed Walker, via phone call, of the decision the day before attending Joyce’s celebration of life in her hometown of Waterbury, Conn.

“The celebration was that Saturday, and I had just done the interview on Tuesday and they knew I was going to be out of town,” said Walker. “Friday, they called me and let me know I didn’t have the job. The next day at the celebration of life, all of her friends would go, ‘Oh, I hope her assistant gets the job.’ And I’m there like, ‘Uh, I didn’t get it.’ So it was just hard.”

The university found themselves in a rare, hard position having to hire amidst these equally unexpected and unfortunate circumstances.

Matt Brown is a journalist and publisher of Extra Points, a newsletter that covers the business and administrative side of college athletics.

“It isn’t a meritocracy. It isn’t just a cold, dispassionate, did you win or did you not,” Brown said of the search processes that go into finding