Joyce, Joan
Softball
b. Aug. 1, 1940, Waterbury, CT
Although she's not nearly as well known, Joyce has to be ranked very close to Babe Didrikson Zaharias as the greatest woman athlete of all time. She made her name as a softball player. Before she was 14, she joined the Raybestos Brakettes of Stratford, CT. During her 20 seasons with the team, the Brakettes won eleven national championships, including four in a row. Joyce pitched 150 no-hitters and 50 perfect games, winning 753 games while losing only 42. She once pitched 29 innings of a 1-0 victory.
When not pitching, she played first base and had a .324 career batting average. In 1971, she was the top hitter in the National Softball Association tournament, with a .467 average. An All-American eighteen years in a row, she was named most valuable player of the tournament eight times.
The 5-foot-9 Joyce averaged 25 points a game in AAU basketball competition and was a three-time All-American. She was also a fine volleyball player and, three months after she started bowling, she won the Connecticut state championship.
Joyce announced her retirement from softball after the 1973 season and was given the Gold Key award for outstanding achievement by the Connecticut Sportswriters Association. She was not only the first woman to win the award, she was the first ever invited to the awards banquet.
But she didn't stop there. Joyce joined the Ladies' Professional Golf Association tour in 1975. Though never a champion, she did win more than $30,000 in 1984, when she shot a 66 for one round of the S & H Golf Classic. Joyce was also a player-coach in the United States Volleyball Association for four years.
During her softball career, Joyce's pitches were sometimes clocked at more than 116 mph. In exhibition games, she struck out Ted Williams in 1962 and Hank Aaron in 1978.
In 1994, Joyce became the first women's softball coach at Florida Atlantic University. She has also coached the women's golf team at the school since 1996.