Bill Edwards, the former coach of Hofstra University’s softball program, said he remembers Jen Pawol as an athletic player and an important piece of his team. Now, nearly 30 years later, she is the first woman in MLB history to umpire a game.
“She was a great hitter, great player, very athletic and just loved to play,” Edwards said about Pawol. “Part of her passion for playing is what carried over to her finally finding that she was made to umpire.”
Pawol became the first female umpire in Major League Baseball history to appear in a regular-season game when she stepped onto the field for the first game of a doubleheader between the Miami Marlins and Atlanta Braves on Saturday, Aug. 9.
“I sit back and I marvel at how hard and how long she has worked for this,” Edwards said. “Once I knew that that was what she was going to go for, I knew that there was no one else who was better suited to become a major league umpire.”
Edwards began coaching at Hofstra in 1990. He said that during his first few recruiting cycles, he mainly attracted players from Long Island.
“I couldn’t get kids in my first two years to even come on campus,” he said. “I wanted to recruit Jersey kids. I wanted to recruit Pennsylvania kids. They had never heard of Hofstra softball and I couldn’t get them to check out the campus.”
Once the team became nationally ranked, Edwards said he was able to branch out and recruit players from throughout the northeast.
That allowed Edwards to target Pawol, a native of New Jersey, as a recruit out of high school. She joined the Pride in 1996 and spent the next three seasons with the program.
She began her career as a catcher, but then made the switch to shortstop halfway through college.
Pawol appeared in 161 games, and accumulated 169 hits, 109 runs scored, 102 runs batted in, 15 home runs, 22 stolen bases and 33 walks while batting .332 for her career.
Powal was a three-time All-Conference pick and represented Team USA on its women’s national baseball team in 2001.
Pawol broke into Major League Baseball’s umpiring ranks nine years ago at the Rookie Ball level after working at the NCAA level from 2010 to 2016.
She reached Triple-A in 2023, when she became the first female umpire ever to work its championship game. She then made her Spring Training debut in 2024, becoming just the seventh woman to umpire
“When she wants something, she has the work ethic to go and get it,” Edwards said. “To have her be a trailblazer, to have her be a pioneer, no one is a better representative of what she’s doing, and I just knew that it was eventually going to happen.
Pawol was called up to be on the field for three games during the series between the Braves and Marlins. She got the opportunity to call balls and strikes during the series finale on Sunday, Aug. 10.
Many people from around the baseball world congratulated Pawol on her milestone, including MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, several players and managers and the MLB Umpires Association.
The cap worn from her first game was donated to the MLB Hall of Fame, as the museum called it, “a landmark day for women in baseball.”
“She was just made to do this,” Pawol’s former coach said.
Edwards said Pawol called him in advance to tell him the news, but he was unable to make it to Truist Park in Atlanta. The former Hofstra coach said he doesn’t think this was a one-time thing.
“I’m waiting for her next call-up so I can make the second one,” he said.
