OKLAHOMA CITY — It was always bound to come to this, but the hope was it wouldn’t.
Before the postseason began, there was a fear the Texas Tech softball team would be pitted against Tennessee in the Super Regionals, fighting for a spot in the Women’s College World Series. Luckily that didn’t happen. The Red Raiders were sent to Gainesville, and that situation was far worse than what could’ve been anticipated beforehand.
When Texas Tech eliminated the Gators and found itself in a potential spot of facing Tennessee in Oklahoma City, there always remained that chance everything could stay about softball, the sport to which Karen Weekly and Taylor Pannell have dedicated their lives.
Unfortunately, even after a thrilling nine-inning game that went the way of the Vols, it couldn’t just end there. According to Pannell, during the postgame handshake line, Weekly told her she “made a mistake” in transferring from Tennessee to Texas Tech last year.
Weekly denies saying that to Pannell.
“If you rewatch at the tape of the handshake line, you’re going to see me go just as fast by her as anybody else,” Weekly told the Knoxville News Sentinel. “I didn’t even know where she was in the handshake line … that’s an outright lie. I said good game like I said to every other player.”
So it’s a she-said, she-said. I didn’t witness, or hear, the comment itself, but there’s a reason why I was nudged in that direction after the game. There’s also a reason why a host of Texas Tech softball players and coaches (NiJaree Canady among them) have reposted the initial X (formerly Twitter) post on Pannell’s claim.
This is where things stand with Texas Tech and Tennessee, two schools that had little to no involvement with each other this time last year. That all changed when Red Raider boosters sought to surround Canady with as much talent as possible in order to win a national championship in 2026.
Pannell was just one of seven transfers Texas Tech brought in, all stars at their former schools. But it’s Pannell that has caused the most noise of them all. Weekly was quoted in a story by The Athletic recently saying, “… there’s no question they were in contact with our player long before the season was over. … A financial agreement was signed with Texas Tech before she ever went in the portal. (She) told me that.”
So a person at one school was offered a job at another school, perhaps with a better compensation package, before officially leaving their current spot?
If that sounds familiar, you’d be correct, though not with Pannell. In fact, this is not the first time this has happened between these two schools. One just so happened to be a coach, so nobody cared about it then.
Back in May 2024, Craig Snider had just gotten Texas Tech within an inch of making the NCAA softball tournament. He had the second-ranked recruiting class in the country coming in and a talented set of young players to mold around.
On one Saturday night, Snider told Texas Tech director of athletics Kirby Hocutt that he was leaving town, heading to Knoxville to be an assistant under Weekly. He was officially gone before church let out the next morning. That left Texas Tech looking for its fourth head coach in just six years, ultimately leading to Gerry Glasco taking over the position.
Weekly embodies the old-school mentality of the softball world, one that wants to be treated as a big-time sport on par with football, men’s basketball and baseball without sacrificing the purity of what folks like her and Oklahoma head coach Patty Gasso have spent decades molding.
As Canady pointed out on the team’s first day in Oklahoma City, that’s impossible. If you want a sport to get treated like a major player, that comes with the unintended consequences. Certain teams want to say they’re aiming to win a national championship, but few are willing to pony up the dough to put together the best teams possible in the transfer portal era.
Texas Tech’s supposed poaching of Pannell has led to a year-long crusade against the Red Raiders from many in the sport — led by Weekly. Several sources have informed me that meetings had been held last summer among the power brokers in softball specifically to not schedule Texas Tech in the non-conference. That, in turn, would harm the team’s RPI and lead to a lower seed in the NCAA softball tournament — both of which happened.
Another person quoted in that story from The Athletic is Kirk Walker, co-found and owner of the Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic, held every year in February. Walker runs one of the most well-respected events in the sport, annually hosting some of the top teams in the country, this year’s field including Texas Tech.
When the schedule was released back in September, there was a noticable lack of meat on Tech’s schedule. No Oklahoma, Oregon, Duke or anyone else of consequence. Curious, I reached out asking how these sorts of things are established and why the Red Raiders didn’t have a single notable name on the docket.
Walker’s windy response ended mostly saying that teams always say who they want, are OK with and do not want to play, and that Tech also had requests. He finally got the truth out recently, saying, “Texas Tech had a lot of teams that chose not to or elected to not play them, and a lot of it had to do with the transfer of players and other things.”
Of course, none of this is news, only confirming what’s long been suspected. Anyone paying attention has known something weird was going on with Tech’s schedule the minute it came out. Nobody wanted to play them, and it had very little to do with an actual fear of losing to them. It was a message: You’re not allowed at our table.
But Texas Tech is nothing if not creative. The same window of opportunity to put together a Big 12 champion football team was right there in softball, but on a bigger scale. Never before had any school footed a significant bill to yield success in this sport. Glasco convinced the likes of Tracy Sellers to help get things rolling. As he reminded us all this week, he only had three players on the roster after Snider left town. Of course he was going to hit the transfer portal hard.
That led to the team getting Canady for a historic NIL deal, which led to the Red Raiders coming one game short of being a national champion in a sport many forgot Texas Tech sponsored before July 2024.
When Texas Tech opened the 2025 season, a few hundred people found the time to see the game. Now, the stands are overflowing every game.
“The town of Lubbock has embraced our program,” Glasco said this week, “and it’s crazy the support we’re getting. I was laughing yesterday, like we’re the villains of America. I’m telling you, we’re the Cinderella of Lubbock, Texas. They love us in Lubbock, Texas. We’re right there with Buddy Holly right now.”
The Red Raiders will be your Dr. Doom or Darth Vader, if you see fit, but the origin story did not take place in 2025. That can be traced to Snider leaving town, something he had every right to do, just as Pannell and every other player has the right to do.
But if Weekly wants to point the finger at somebody for why Texas Tech softball has become just a hot-button issue, or an issue at all, she needs to consider her role in all of this.
If Pannell made a mistake transferring to Texas Tech, Weekly taking Snider from Lubbock is what set everything else in motion.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Texas Tech softball’s ascent can be traced back to Karen Weekly | Giese
Reporting by Nathan Giese, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal / Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
