Andrea AdelsonMar 26, 2026, 07:00 AM ETClose ACC reporter. Joined ESPN.com in 2010. Graduate of the University of Florida.Follow on XMultiple Authors
When she walked onto the field in Fullerton, California, for the Bruins’ doubleheader last month and saw her former coach and boss, Sue Enquist, she asked quizzically, “What are you doing here?”
“We are so much more than wins,” Inouye-Perez said. “At the end of the day, I’m proud of what we do here at UCLA in very hard moments.”
In Year 2 in the Big Ten, the No. 8 Bruins (27-3) are riding a 22-game winning streak while on a two-week road trip — culminating in a huge Big Ten showdown at No. 6 Nebraska (24-5) starting Friday.
That the 56-year-old Inouye-Perez has spent her entire career at UCLA is remarkable. That she is still winning despite the changes, challenges and upheaval in the current collegiate landscape might be most remarkable of all.
IN THE MOMENTS after UCLA beat Florida 15-12 on Feb. 27 to clinch the historic win for Inouye-Perez, the team gathered for an impromptu celebration just outside the stadium. UCLA deputy athletics director Christina Munger-Rivera said to Inouye-Perez, “You have helped build this legacy. You continue to build this legacy and you accomplished something that I bet you never as a young girl ever thought you’d be standing here doing. Today Coach Enquist passes the crown on to you.”
“The key to success is to surround yourself with people that are just as committed and passionate as you,” Inouye-Perez said to the group gathered around her.
“I still see her as that little catcher with her big bangs, and now she is just this transformative leader running one of the most storied programs in the history of softball,” Enquist said. “The thing that I’m most in awe of Kelly is her sustained ability to be in the run for championships every single year for this long.”
She quickly joined a travel team, where she met Fernandez, who would become perhaps the greatest pitcher in the history of the sport.
Fernandez found a like-minded soul in Inouye-Perez, starting a 46-year friendship that still has them together — the way they envisioned when they used to tell each other as UCLA players, “Wouldn’t it be cool to one day be the coaches here?”
Take the anecdote current senior Jordan Woolery shares when asked for her favorite Inouye-Perez story. UCLA was at Stanford two years ago, and Woolery was in the middle of a rough stretch. During the game, Inouye-Perez told Woolery to just vent and let all her complaints go. When Woolery was done, Inouye-Perez took her phone out and showed Woolery one of her favorite quotes:
“Coach I has this ability to connect with people and meet them where they’re at, and also bring out the best in them,” Woolery said. “It’s really unique. I said three complaints. She showed me the quote, and then, boom, I was ready to go.”
A crushing shoulder injury during Inouye-Perez’s sophomore year opened her eyes to the possibility of coaching, but she had planned to go to graduate school to study sports psychology once her playing career ended in 1993.
What Inouye-Perez did not know is Sharron Backus and Enquist, co-head coaches at the time, needed a No. 2 assistant to fill out the staff.
“Sharron asked me, ‘Who are you thinking?'” Enquist said. “I’m like, ‘Hands down, I’m thinking Kelly.'”
Inouye-Perez always rode up front with Backus in their team vans on the way to games. Enquist says from the day Inouye-Perez arrived as a freshman in 1989, “It was like we had a mini coach.”
“Her technical, tactical expertise, and her game IQ were off the charts,” Enquist said. “Her relationship range was off the charts, too. She could connect with the spoiled person on the team, with the person that lacked confidence, but she also spoke the vernacular of the future greatest softball player in the world, Lisa Fernandez, and she had this uncanny ability to bring them all together.
“To have the rigor on the performance side but also know how to build those relationships was indescribably important.”
Inouye-Perez became a UCLA lifer, loyally upholding the history and tradition of a program with a record 33 Women’s College World Series appearances, to go with a record 13 national championships and more wins than any other program in softball. She remains the only person in Division I history to win a national championship as a player and coach.
“I’ve learned now to take the harder path,” Inouye-Perez said. “You don’t really know what the best version of yourself is until you truly get challenged.”
That happened in 1999, when she learned she was pregnant with her first child. At the time, there were few coaches with children, fewer still who had their children with them at practices or games.
“I can’t do this,” Inouye-Perez told her. “I can’t put softball before my family. I have no idea what I’m doing.”
Enquist told her without hesitation. “We can do this. We will do this. You’re not leaving this program, Kelly. You are going to be in this program forever.”
Enquist called a team meeting with a clear message to her players: “If you can’t make this adjustment, if you can’t get A’s in school, and you can’t field a backhand and change a diaper, then I recruited the wrong person.”
OVER THE PAST 38 years at UCLA, both the game and the enterprise have changed dramatically. When Inouye-Perez played, pitchers dominated and games often went 20-plus innings. Since then, changes to the sport and advances in technology have transformed softball into a hitter’s game — one that has gained substantial popularity as a result. To that end, UCLA is currently on pace to set a school record for runs scored in a season and a school record for highest team ERA.
But the biggest changes happened over the past five years, with NIL, loosened transfer rules and, most recently, revenue sharing with student-athletes — all while UCLA made the move from the Pac-12 to the Big Ten to begin play in 2024.
“Sharron Backus built the blueprint, and when I took over, I never had to change the blueprint,” Enquist said. “But Kelly, midway through her career, she had to change the blueprint because the game and collegiate athletics had a systemic renaissance. I’m just so proud that she has been able to maintain the legacy blueprint of UCLA softball, while changing and adapting.”
Inouye-Perez acknowledges “we don’t have every resource,” but accepting the challenges of this new era is something she and Fernandez have willingly embraced. They have won, too. Maybe not national championships, but Inouye-Perez always says the goal is to get to Oklahoma City, and then see what happens.
Since NIL went into effect in July 2021, UCLA has had three 50-plus-win seasons and made three WCWS appearances, including last season.
“We’re competitors, and we have an inner drive that we can find a way,” Fernandez said. “We were meant to be in this time, in this place. We are going to do everything we can to continue to evolve and develop as the game changes.”
Enquist noted the way Inouye-Perez has built a network of fundraising and business partners to help fill in the gaps.
UCLA softball has had only three head coaches in its 52-year history: Backus, Enquist and Inouye-Perez. If there is pressure to uphold the UCLA standard, Inouye-Perez never shows it because she has a job to do, and the job is more than the wins and the losses.
The game has changed, the landscape has changed, but her core values have not. So she goes to work every day challenged, yes, but wholeheartedly believing in her mission to help develop the women on her team into the best version of themselves, to keep the “Bruin Bubble” filled with people who come back to support each other and support the program.
If she never wins another championship, Inouye-Perez will know she has done more than enough. It is like one of the favored clichés she tells her seniors:
“Get to your final destination as late as you can with a smile on your face to know that you enjoyed the journey.”
Every decision Inouye-Perez has made, going back to the day she decided she wanted to be a catcher as a 10-year-old in Southern California, led her to this moment. Inouye-Perez took one look at the daughter of her coach, in all her gear, and thought, “Wow she looks cool. I want to try that.” The first time she crouched behind the plate to take a pitch, it bounced off her mask. Undeterred, Inouye-Perez wanted to try again, and again, and soon it became clear she had the skill, talent and mentality to play a position that serves as a de facto coach on the field.
UCLA does not have a softball budget that ranks among the top 10 programs in the country, nor does Inouye-Perez rank among the top 10 coaches in salary. A school such as Texas Tech, without the same softball tradition as UCLA, can suddenly become a contender with a $1 million player on its roster in pitcher NiJaree Canady — a player the Bruins know all too well. She played at Stanford the last year of the Pac-12 in 2023. This past offseason, UCLA lost one of its starting pitchers, Kaitlyn Terry, to Texas Tech.
Andrea AdelsonMar 26, 2026, 07:00 AM ETClose ACC reporter. Joined ESPN.com in 2010. Graduate of the University of Florida.Follow on XMultiple Authors
But her focus has never been on how many wins she has piled next to her name.
Enquist knelt down and bowed her head as she gave Inouye-Perez a gold crown studded with blue gems.
“They whispered to her, ‘You cannot withstand the storm.’ She whispered back, ‘I am the storm.'”
Inouye-Perez asked to meet with Enquist, bawling. She planned to quit.
Inouye-Perez has a photo of that moment hanging in her house.
“Of course,” Backus said in response. “My co-pilot.”
Close ACC reporter. Joined ESPN.com in 2010. Graduate of the University of Florida.Follow on X