After a tumultuous six-month stretch in which Iowa softball has had multiple head coaches, the Hawkeyes have hired a new permanent head coach in Stacy May-Johnson. May-Johnson, a former star player in Iowa City, comes to Iowa after two years at Utah Valley and four years at Fresno State.

“I am thrilled to be coming back to Iowa City and to once again be a Hawkeye,” May-Johnson said in a statement. “I look forward to leading Iowa softball to Big Ten Championships and the Women's College World Series, and creating a championship culture both in the classroom and on the field.”

May-Johnson played for Iowa from 2003 to 2006 and was on some of the last great Iowa softball teams, such as the 2003 squad that won Big Ten regular season and tournament championships. At Iowa she was named Big Ten Freshman of the Year in 2003, was a three-time All-Big Ten honoree, and ranks in the top 15 in program history in games played, runs, hits, doubles, home runs, RBIs, and batting average.

Iowa was also where May-Johnson began her coaching career, first as a student assistant in 2007 and later as an assistant coach under Marla Looper from 2011-14. In between, she was a volunteer assistant at Louisville, where she returned to be an assistant coach in 2015-16. She followed that with stints at Purdue (2017) and Eastern Kentucky (2018-19) before getting her first head coaching position with Utah Valley in 2020.

Utah Valley 12-7 in May-Johnson's first, COVID-shortened season and went 24-28 in her first full campaign in 2021. She moved to Fresno State in 2022, where she 19-36 and 24-31 in her first two seasons. The Bulldogs improved to 33-19 overall and 13-9 in Mountain West conference in 2024.

This year, May-Johnson guided Fresno State to a 37-20 overall record and a 15-7 mark in the Mountain West conference but lost a pair of games to San Diego State in the conference tournament to fall short of earning the league's auto-bid.

May-Johnson becomes Iowa's fourth head coach in the last six months. The head coaching roller coaster ride began back in December, when the university announced that former head coach Renee Gillispie was stepping away from coaching in 2025 due to a personal health matter. Gillespie was replaced by assistant head coach Brian Levin as interim head coach to start the 2025 campaign.

Levin led Iowa to a 13-5 record, but he was removed from the head coaching position on March 7 amid rumors of player unrest. Levin was replaced by another assistant coach in Karl Gollan, who finished out the 2025 season and guided Iowa to a 35-18 overall record and a 15-7 mark in Big Ten play, including a notable win over #5 UCLA. An early exit in the Big Ten Tournament likely cost Iowa an opportunity to vie for a bid to the NCAA Tournament, though it was still Iowa's best season in several years.

“We are thrilled to welcome Stacy May-Johnson back to Iowa as the new head coach of our softball program,” said Iowa athletic director Beth Goetz. “Stacy is a proven leader with a deep understanding of what it means to be a Hawkeye. Her experience as a standout student-athlete, combined with her coaching success and commitment to developing young women on and off the field, makes her the ideal person to lead our program into its next chapter. We are excited for the future of Iowa softball under her leadership.”

May-Johnson will be tasked with building on that momentum and getting Iowa back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2009. She inherits a team with some promising young talent eligible to return, including two-time All-Big Ten honorees Jena Young and Jalen Adams.

Young, a sophomore infielder, earned first team All-Big Ten honors (as well as all-defensive team recognition) after hitting .359 and hitting 59 hits (including 10 doubles, five triples, three home runs) and 26 RBIs. Adams, a junior pitcher, earned second team All-Big Ten honors after going 25-6 with 130 strikeouts and a 2.18 ERA while pitching 198.2 innings, including 20 complete games.

May-Johnson's job in building Iowa into a team that can contend in the Big Ten and vie for NCAA Tournament appearances will be even more challenging in the recently-expanded Big Ten. Oregon went 19-3 and won the league in the Ducks' inaugural season in the Big Ten, while fellow league newcomer UCLA finished two games back at 17-5.