It was the bottom of the first inning in the Blaze’s season opener on June 7, and Danielle Gibson Whorton was stepping up to the plate in a professional softball game for the first time in 651 days.
She could be forgiven for thinking it had been even longer.
Gibson Whorton took last year off after becoming pregnant with her son Whitley, who was born on Nov. 4, 2024. She had put off playing with Team USA to start her family and was also balancing an assistant coaching position at her alma mater, the University of Arkansas.
But when she stood in the box for her first at-bat of the Athletes Unlimited Softball League season, it was as if she’d never been away from the game at all. She blasted a 0-1 pitch from the Volts’ Rachel Garcia to the base of the center-field wall for a double, driving in Baylee Klingler for the first run in Blaze franchise history.
“It’s amazing that as a human being, you can have a baby and then you can come back and produce and be such a high-level athlete,” Gibson Whorton’s husband, Mallie Whorton, said. “I was speechless when I saw her hit that double. I’m like, ‘Wow.’ It’s like she never left.”
A hitting machine
As the calendar turned to 2024, everything was falling into place for Gibson Whorton.
She grew up in Southern California, renowned for its high concentration of top softball talent, perhaps more so than anywhere else in the United States. She helped Arizona State reach the Women’s College World Series as a freshman in 2018, then became a program staple over four years at Arkansas. She even became the second player in Division I softball to hit for the home run cycle — a solo homer, two-run shot, three-run blast and grand slam in one game — as a sophomore.
“I fell in love with softball and the offensive part of the game,” Gibson Whorton said. “It’s all I know, and it’s all that I want to know.”
Even though the second of her four seasons in Fayetteville was cut short due to COVID-19, Gibson Whorton is still the Razorbacks’ all-time leader in total bases and runs batted in. She led Arkansas to Southeastern Conference titles in 2021 and 2022, then adjusted quickly to the professional game, leading Athletes Unlimited in slugging percentage and total bases during 2023 Championship Season (now known as the All-Star Cup). On the heels of that season, she was named to the national team roster for the first time.
In the meantime, her coaching career was taking off. After a year as the volunteer assistant at Georgia, Gibson Whorton returned to the Razorbacks for a full-time position on Head Coach Courtney Deifel’s staff. She had married Mallie Whorton, whom she met while attending Arkansas, in 2021, and the couple moved into their new Fayetteville home in late 2023.
Gibson Whorton learned that she had made Team USA in April 2024, when Arkansas was playing a series at South Carolina. Mere days later, she found out she was pregnant.
“It was a mix of emotions,” Gibson Whorton said. “USA had always been a goal of mine, and I finally felt like I had made it. I had proven myself. I was going to wear ‘USA’ across my chest, and then here comes Whit. Obviously hindsight is 20/20, everything happened the way that it was supposed to, but I am still bummed that I haven’t gotten to wear ‘USA’ across my chest quite yet.”
‘Rolling with the punches’
If there is one quality Gibson Whorton admires most in her husband, it’s his adaptability.
Mallie Whorton wanted to be a chiropractor, then a strength and conditioning coach, working with the softball, baseball and track teams at Georgia during Gibson Whorton’s year there as a volunteer assistant. When the couple returned to Fayetteville, he built a home gym in their backyard so that Gibson Whorton could continue working out during her pregnancy and as she worked back into playing shape after Whitley was born.
There were no open strength and conditioning jobs in Fayetteville for Whorton, so he became a high school chemistry teacher, allowing him more free time in the summer to travel with his wife and son.
“I always call it a superpower of just rolling with the punches and staying baseline on everything, no matter how chaotic everything gets,” Mallie Whorton said. “With a new baby, obviously leaving the house is really hard. Every minute is very valuable, so driving to the gym 15 minutes each way takes so much time out of your day.”
Gibson Whorton stuck a note above her desk in the Arkansas softball offices that says, “Continue to fight for the strength to do the hard.” As she returned to work this year as both a coach and a player, she has found that strength, signing with the Blaze – one of the AUSL’s inaugural teams – as a free agent in February.
“She went back and forth on (whether) she was even ready to go, and then she gets a chance as a free agent,” Blaze Head Coach Alisa Goler said. “She’s juggling a lot. She’s not just juggling (being a) mom. She’s juggling being at a top-8 school as a coach, too. I’m happy that that happened for her because I can’t imagine what her offseason training has been like mentally and physically with everything she’s got going on.”
Gibson Whorton isn’t the only mom on the Blaze this season. Veteran pitcher Keilani Ricketts gave birth to her daughter, Elizabeth, in May 2022 and has enjoyed a long professional career domestically and abroad.
Gibson Whorton had not met Ricketts before this year, but the two have bonded over their shared experience balancing motherhood and playing pro softball.
“My first season with (Elizabeth), she was about 18 months old. With a baby, Whit is under 1, so I can’t imagine how she’s feeling right now,” Ricketts said. “It’s nice to be able to have someone on the team who I’m able to relate to, not just as an athlete but as a mother trying to train as well and trying to perform our best on the field.”
Bombs away again
The Blaze have struggled out of the gate in their inaugural season, but Gibson Whorton has not missed a beat. She has hit safely in six of her first seven games and had the first multi-homer game in AUSL history on June 13 against the Talons.
Her first home run was a towering opposite-field blast to left-center field in the opening inning; her second, a laser beam down the right-field line in the seventh. It helps to bat behind the league’s hottest hitter, Baylee Klingler, and the two sluggers have anchored the heart of the Blaze’s lineup.
“Aside from the outcome of our at-bats, she’s a great teammate,” Klingler said. “Talking to each other in the dugout, it’s very professional, but it’s light and fun. Gibby always gets it done. It’s really cool for her.”
Later this month, Gibson Whorton’s Team USA dreams will at last be realized. She will play for the national team at the USA Softball All-Star Showcase on June 26 in Oklahoma City alongside Blaze teammates Klingler, Aliyah Andrews, Carley Hoover, Kayla Kowalik and Aubrey Leach.
Most importantly, Gibson Whorton is playing not just for herself, but for her son. Whitley quickly became a favorite among the Arkansas players and staff in the spring, and the Blaze are now treating him with the same level of affection.
“I used to think hitting a home run was the best feeling in the world,” Gibson Whorton said. “Seeing (Whitley) smile has topped it, without a doubt.”
Benjamin Rosenberg is the Blaze beat reporter for the AUSL this season. He has more than seven years of experience covering college, professional and high school softball, and graduated with a degree in journalism from Northwestern University in 2021.
