LSU freshman pitcher Carley Hoover loves to compete.
Competition has been a part of the Clemson, South Carolina, native’s life since she was a child. Her mother Jolene was the volleyball coach in Clemson for 22 seasons and is still the winningest coach in the program’s history.
Even board games between Carley and her father Dave who was an All-American in track and field at Lewis University, were highly competitive.
“That’s why I’m so competitive, because I’ve been competing from such a young age,” Carley said. “Even when we used to play board games, me and my dad would get into fights when I was younger because he would jump me or beat me out of the game, and I would be pissed. I’ve always been competitive, and that nature comes from being around athletics so much.”
Carley wasn’t just raised around athletics. She participated in nearly all of them. Before focusing her athletic prowess on the circle, she competed in football, basketball and volleyball.
Carley played nose guard for her youth football team until the day her dad and coach had to sit her down and tell her she would never make it to the NFL. To this day, her football coach, whom she refers to as Coach E., is Carley’s favorite coach, even though he had to crush one of her dreams.
Carley helped lead D.W. Daniel High School’s basketball team to a state runner-up finish as a freshman.
Daniel’s volleyball team won the 2009 state championship with Carley playing alongside her sister Hayley.
“I actually got to play with my sister, which was cool,” Carley said. “We played club together some, and in high school when she was a senior and I was a freshman, we won state.”
Although Carley didn’t win another state championship in volleyball, she did receive All-American honors from recruiting service MaxPreps.com in 2012.
But in softball, Carley was nothing short of dominant.
She earned the 2012-13 Gatorade National Softball Player of the Year award. Her senior season, Carley posted a 16-4 record and 0.15 ERA, allowing just three earned runs. She struck out 338 batters in 138 innings, nearly 2.5 strikeouts per inning, while helping her team to the 2013 state title.
Carley committed to play softball at Stanford, a school that originally piqued her interest for volleyball.
When an injury derailed her freshman season at Stanford, she faced the prospect of not being able to compete for the first time in her life.
“It happened in fall games,” Carley said. “It was a stress fracture on my rib, so it’s kind of like pain tolerance — whatever you can deal with. But they did not know what it was until March of the following spring. So I literally played on it for months and months, and I guess I had a high pain tolerance because when they finally found out what it was, they were like ,‘How have you been playing on this?’”
Carley found the injury hard to handle. She said it made simple tasks like reaching for her seatbelt difficult. It wasn’t just the physical pain that was tough to handle — Carley said it was difficult to watch her teammates compete when she couldn’t join in.
“When you have an injury on a team it’s really hard because a lot of time the player feels removed,” Jolene said. “And it is hard, because you are removed in some aspects.”
At the end of her freshman season, in which she was only able to start five games, Carley decided it was time for a change of scenery. She packed up her stuff and brought it home because she didn’t think she would return to Stanford for a second season.
When Stanford coach John Rittman resigned, Carley said she felt like she had no ties left.
“I wanted to go somewhere where I knew a program was ready to win for four years,” Carley said.
When she began to search for a new place to take her talents, she said LSU was the only school that came to mind. Carley said she had a positive recruiting visit to LSU in high school, but her long-time dream school prevailed against the emotional high of an LSU football gameday visit.
The second time around, Carley jumped at the chance to play for the Tigers, and her competitive fire was at the heart of her decision.
“I just wanted to be in a more competitive place,” Carley said. “The SEC, LSU, everything about it is competitive. They’re surrounded by people whose sole purpose is wanting to win … I wanted to be surrounded by people who wanted the same things I wanted. I wasn’t always on the same frequency as my teammates last year. We kind of had different priorities.”
Carley wasn’t the only one excited about the prospect of her playing for the Tigers.
LSU coach Beth Torina said she was “jumping for joy” when she found out Carley was coming to Baton Rouge.
“There’s not an adjective that describes that feeling,” Torina said. “We knew it was a possible program-changing moment with how talented she is, and what she’s done in her career. She’s a special player, and she’s proven to be all she was made out to be.”
Jolene said Carley’s transition to being at a new school again wasn’t easy at first.
“She had a hard fall, but it was only because she was new again,” Jolene said. “We had to keep reminding her ‘Do you remember what it was like when you first moved to Stanford? You don’t know a lot of people, you’re new. It will go. You just gotta let the process go.’”
Carley also had to find her groove in the circle again. She had been out of practice for months. When Torina asked Carley to throw during a pitching test, Carley said she didn’t even know where to begin.
“Coach, I don’t even know how to wind-up. I don’t even know what start to do,’” Carley told Torina.
“We kind of scraped by the first couple weeks. We were trying to figure out ‘Okay, how are you going to wind up this year? What’s intimidating? What will make you throw hard?’ It was like starting completely from scratch.”
Carley said she connected quickly with junior shortstop Bianka Bell, senior center fielder A.J. Andrews, sophomore infielder Sahvanna Jaquish and junior third baseman Jenna Kreamer, who also transferred to LSU.
“[Kreamer] also transferred from the Pac-12, so she knew about being away from home,” Carley said. “She knew the differences. I asked her a lot of questions, and we’ve talked a lot about it. It’s comforting to have people like that who understand what you went through.”
Carley was able to continue building bonds with her teammates, and she said the chemistry the team has developed is the “coolest part” about this season.
She said LSU’s other pitchers might be more polished in the circle, but she has been incredibly effective for the Tigers.
The freshman has compiled a 13-3 record and a 1.78 ERA. She has struck out 127 batters and held opposing hitters to a batting average of .225 in 106 1/3 innings pitched.
Carley isn’t just padding her stats against inferior opponents, she has become a big-game pitcher.
“She’s a great competitor, one of the best competitors I’ve ever been around,” Torina said. “She wants the ball in the big game. She wants the ball all the time. She takes it and runs with it.”
Earlier this season, Torina trusted Carley to get the job done against Arizona, the team that ended LSU’s 2014 season. When Oklahoma traveled to Baton Rouge, it boasted the best-hitting lineup in the country. Torina gave Carley the ball in Game 1 on March 20, and she dominated the Sooners in a two-hit shutout.
Carley said her competitive nature was a key component to her being able to return so successfully this season.
Carley has three more years at LSU, or as she puts it, “three more championships.” Aside from winning championships, Carley said she hopes the chemistry and competitiveness she shares with her teammates is something that continues at LSU for years to come.
“The competitiveness within our own teammates to be better than one another for each other is just incredible, and I hope it’s a tradition that stays at LSU even when I’m gone,” Carley said. “I hope teammates have that type of chemistry and that type of drive even when I’m not here.
“I want LSU to be about that for the rest of time.”
You can reach Jack Woods on Twitter @Jack_TDR.