A first for MLB baseball: SF Giants hire female coach, a former Sac State star
The San Francisco Giants made a historic hire on Thursday, adding former Sacramento State softball star Alyssa Nakken to their major league coaching staff. While women have begun serving on coaching staffs in the NFL and NBA, and the New York Yankees recently hired Rachel Balkovec to be a minor league hitting coach, Nakken is believed to be the first woman named to a big league coaching staff.
Nakken, 29, is considered to be one of the best softball players to suit up at Sacramento State. She was a three-time All Conference player, played first, and also excelled in the classroom. In her senior year in 2012, Nakken was named Scholar Athlete of the Year in her conference.
Nakken wants to wait to do interviews until she has settled into her job. But her boss – Giants manager Gabe Kapler – said by phone from Arizona that Nakken will be working with Giants players on base running. She will throw batting practice. She will work with all the coaches on the technical aspects of the game while also working to help create unity and cohesion on a team full of new faces.
Of significance: Kapler said Nakken will be in uniform, donning the Giants familiar black and orange. She won’t be in the dugout during games because teams are restricted to seven coaches there during games, and that staff had already been named before Nakken was hired.
“(Nakken) is the best choice for this job, period,” Kapler said on Thursday. “She has experience as an elite athlete. She’s been with the Giants organization. She was successful leading initiatives with the Giants. She was a perfect fit.”
Kapler said the Giants interviewed a host of candidates before offering the job to Nakken, who is a Woodland native. “She has tremendous communication skills and a lot of drive and determination and that stood out,” he said.
Nakken earned a degree in psychology at Sacramento State while also playing 164 consecutive games for the Hornets. She had been working in the Giants front office, running health and wellness programs, including the Giants Race series.
“Viewed from any angle, she was a candidate who would not be denied,” Kapler said.
Kathy Strahan, Nakken’s former coach at Sacramento State, said she was thrilled when Nakken called to give her the news of her historic hiring.
“I got goosebumps, I was so happy for her,” Strahan said.
Robert Nakken, Alyssa’s dad, said he heard the news on a busy day as an estate lawyer in Woodland.
“We’re extremely happy and proud but this is her accomplishment, not mine or her mother’s,” said Robert Nakken. Like his daughter, he is also a lifelong Woodland resident and Woodland High School graduate.
“She started playing t-ball when she was 6 and she was a star kind of always,” he said. “She has always strived to achieve, to make things better.”
It’s all a wonderful story achievement with an added dimension of joy: The Nakken’s have always been Giants fans and now their daughter is going to wear the uniform, a reality that dad was still processing late Thursday
“This hit me in the middle of a busy work day,” he said. “Things are always busy in January and I don’t know if this has really sunk in yet. It’s quite exciting but I really don’t know how to react.”
For those who know her, it doesn’t seem that long ago that Nakken was playing three sports at Woodland High: Volleyball, basketball and softball.
From the time she arrived at Sac State in 2008, Strahan said that Nakken stood out among other athletes.
“I get players who are away from home for the first time so I see a lot of everything but there was always a positive energy about her,” Strahan said. “She was a standout (on the field and in the classroom). She has a big heart, an off the charts work ethic, a great intellect and is just a very likable person.”
Eventually Nakken became captain at Sac State and acted as a bridge between players and coaches – a role the Giants expect her to play as well.
“The biggest piece of her job will be the culture of the team, keeping her fingers on the pulse of the clubhouse,” Strahan said.
The culture within baseball’s inner sanctum has a fraught history of women being mistreated, harassed or forbidden from even entering.
Not long ago female journalists were barred from big league clubhouses and just last October a Houston Astros executive was fired for taunting female journalists in the Astros clubhouse. Former Astros assistant general manager Brandon Taubman had initially lied about taunting a group of female reporters after the Astros clinched the American League pennant.
Initially, the Astros took Taubman’s word for it and the team said that Stephanie Apstein of Sport Illustrated had mischaracterized his defense of a player as taunting.
But other journalists backed Apstein her female colleagues. The Astros finally investigated and concluded that Taubman had been lying.
This the culture that Nakken is entering. It could be daunting. It will be surely be challenging. But her old coach thinks she can handle it.
“I think she will be great,” Strahan said. “People will take a liking to her. She can talk to people at all different levels. I’m happy to see this change in sports because I think women can bring a different perspective,” Strahan said.
“I always felt that (Nakken) was going to be special, I just didn’t know it would be this...But she’s always had this air about her. You can never put too much on her plate.”
This story was originally published January 16, 2020 at 3:00 PM.
