Nevada softball coach Victoria Hayward among eligible players in Athletes Unlimited draft

Nevada head softball coach Victoria Hayward and Wolf Pack assistant Delanie Wisz are among the 80 players eligible for the inaugural Athletes Unlimited Softball League draft that will be held Wednesday night.

Hayward is a former All-American outfielder at Washington who went on to win an Olympic medal as the captain of Team Canada. Wisz was an All-American corner infielder at UCLA.

The Athletes Unlimited Softball League, which will be run by former Miami Marlins general manager Kim Ng, will host a reallocation draft for its four teams, including the Bandits, Blaze, Talons and Volts. The team will play a 30-game schedule in six to eight cities in 2025 before moving to a fixed-city format the following season. The draft will include 48 picks (12 per team) to comprise their 16-player rosters, which also will include one free agent and three players from the 2025 college class per team.

The AUSL’s inaugural draft will be broadcast live Wednesday at 5 p.m. on ESPN App and the Athletes Unlimited YouTube page with ESPN’s Andraya Carter hosting the show with analysis from former All-Americans Amanda Scarborough and Danielle Lawrie. ESPN is expected to broadcast 30 AUSL games this season, which starts in June.

Hayward played for Washington from 2011-14 and hit .338 in her career, including a .405 average as a senior. A left-handed hitter, she stole 50 bases in her career and posted a .801 career OPS. The 32-year-old won a bronze medal for Canada in the Tokyo Olympics and has played in the National Pro Fastpitch and Athletes Unlimited as a professional, winning the NPF’s Jennie Finch Award in 2019 when she was made the All-NPF Team.

Wisz played for Loyola Marymount (2018-19) and UCLA (2020-22). During her three seasons with the Bruins, she hit .352 with 35 homers in 141 games, driving in 127 runs and slugging .702 during her All-American career. In two years at LMU, she hit .284 with 19 homers and 62 RBIs in 107 games. Wisz was an assistant coach at San Diego State before being hired by Hayward, who accepted the Wolf Pack job in May after most recently being an assistant at Washington. Like Hayward, Wisz has played in Athletes Unlimited.

Athletes Unlimited started its softball league in 2020 with the reformed league starting in 2025 including more structure. The league’s 2025 head coaches include Stacey Nuveman-Deniz (Bandits), Alisa Goler (Blaze), Howard Dobson (Talons) and Kelly Kretschman (Volts). The league’s general managers include big names like Lisa Fernandez and Cat Osterman.

Softball America’s mock draft has Hayward being a 10th-round draft pick (40th overall) by the Bandits, who are led by Nuveman-Deniz, the head coach at SDSU where Hayward was one of her assistants from 2022-23. The mock draft has Wisz going in the 11th round (44th overall) to the Blaze.

The average salary for a player is expected to be $40,000-$45,000 with salaries up to $75,000 through bonuses.