HALL OF FAME FEATURE: Jessica Long Carter '17

As her senior season was drawing to a close in spring 2017, Jessica Long Carter ’17 could have walked away at that moment as one of the most decorated players in Averett University softball history. Most players would have been overjoyed with all her accolades. Still, in her mind, one was missing — a conference tournament championship. 

Carter, with the help of a roster full of freshmen, was finally able to cross off that one missing item from her softball bucket list as underdog Averett rallied multiple times to knock off Ferrum College and win the 2017 USA South Athletic Conference Tournament title on that sunny April day in LaGrange, Georgia.

Seven years later, Carter can cross another item off her bucket list as she is set to be inducted as part of the 2024 class of the Averett Athletics Hall of Fame on Oct. 19 during Homecoming.

Carter’s long list of honors and accomplishments made her shoo-in for the Averett Athletics Hall of Fame. Still, she remembers being speechless when she received that special phone call.

“I didn’t have a response for quite a few seconds,” Carter recalled. “But then when I did come up with a response, I felt very grateful. Having the opportunity for this to happen didn’t happen by just me putting in the work. It was my family for providing me the opportunity to go to Averett because I had wanted to go to Averett ever since I was playing softball in high school, and my teammates.”

A native of nearby Prospect Hill, North Carolina, Carter was a standout locally at Bartlett Yancey High School, where she was attracting attention for her talents on the diamond. The chance to stay close to home and also play college softball with some of her teammates who were also already at Averett certainly helped seal the deal.

“I know a lot of people say it, but honestly it was the home environment,” she recalled. “I felt so comfortable going there. I already had a few high school teammates that went to Averett before me. I was comfortable with them, and the coaching staff made me feel comfortable. That was the No. 1 reason why. And the No. 2 reason was that I was very much a home body. I still kept my options open as far as which colleges to go to, whether that was Division I or Division II. I looked at quite a few, but I kept coming back to Averett. It was somewhere where I felt I clicked.”

Brenda Taylor ’97, a fellow Averett Athletics Hall of Famer who coached softball from 2011-16, remembered Carter and her family inviting her to dinner. That’s when she told Taylor that she delivered the good news.

“I danced down the aisles because I knew she would do great things,” Taylor said.

Carter arrived at Averett during the 2013-14 school year and immediately began making an impact as a freshman during the 2014 season. She started all 38 games that season while rotating between the outfield, shortstop and third base. Carter led the conference in batting average at .464 with 58 hits, 11 doubles, five triples, four home runs, 26 RBIs and 37 runs scored, stole 25 bases and was an easy choice for the USA South Rookie of the Year. She also earned National Fastpitch Coaches Association All-America Second Team and All-Region First Team, was named to the USA South First Team and picked up Virginia Sports Information Directors Co-Rookie of the Year and All-State First Team honors. 

Carter was driven by her former high school teammates Taylor Dix Paschal and Mary Beth Smith, who were now again teammates with her at Averett. Those two — both 2020 Averett Athletics Hall of Fame inductees — helped push Carter’s game to new heights.

“Taylor Dix Paschal and Mary Beth Smith drove me to be better every single day,” she said. “They took me under their wing— especially Taylor. I was — and still am — a little sister figure to her. Because they were so competitive in what they did, it helped me because I’m so competitive. I wanted to be better and do better. It was common for us to stay after practice a lot of days to get another extra round of hitting in. Bren always kept it open for us to do that and (assistant coach) Ronnie Dix was another one who took me under his wing, too, with his hitting knowledge and helping me become successful around the plate hitting. If I had to do it all over again, I’d do the exact same thing. I truly think this was where I needed to be, and I give my teammates all the credit.”

Meanwhile, as Carter excelled, Averett as a program was beginning its ascent to new heights. With so many talented pieces assembled on the roster, Averett took the 2015 season by storm. The Cougars opened the season with a 25-0-1 record (the one tie was a game that ended after five innings due to darkness), and Averett catapulted into the NFCA top 25. The Cougars, who were ranked as high as No. 13 in the country at one point, slipped up in the conference tournament and had to sweat out their postseason aspirations. Luckily, Averett earned an at-large bit into the NCAA Regionals hosted by Emory University in Atlanta.

“It’s pretty mind-boggling, honestly,” Carter said. “We just took it day by day and didn’t want to change anything, because once we started changing our normal, that’s when we didn’t produce like we needed to. We tried to keep each other on a level head as much as possible, especially the first time we went to the regionals when we went to Emory. We had that moment of ‘Oh my gosh, we made it. We’re part of the NCAA Tournament. They got us a special bus to go down there.’ We definitely felt it, but when it came down to it and we were actually ready to start playing, we had to dial it in a little bit and say, ‘This is just another game, it’s just another pitch, it’s just another at-bat. We need to be us. That’s what got us here to begin with.’”

Averett won its opening NCAA Regional game against Berry College before losing to No. 7 Emory and being eliminated by Berry on Day 2. The Cougars finished the year with a program-best 35-5-1 record.

Carter finished off her sophomore campaign with a .431 batting average with seven doubles, one triple, a team-high eight home runs, 52 RBIs and a team-best 54 runs scored while also stealing 26 bases. She earned NFCA All-Region First Team, USA South First Team and VaSID All-State First Team honors.

“Jessica played a huge part of our success as a team because of her never quit attitude and her ability on get on base offensively and make outs defensively,” Taylor said. “She was the all-around athlete that every coach dreams of having.”

As a junior, Carter and the Cougars were poised to return to the postseason. She once again had a great season at the plate, leading the USA South with a .455 batting average, 49 runs scored and 34 stolen bases. She earned NFCA All-America Third Team and NFCA All-Region First Team selections, was named the USA South Player of the Year while being named to the USA South First Team and VaSID All-State First Team. She even became the first player in program history to earn Louisville Slugger/NFCA National Player of the Week. Yet, the Cougars fell short in the USA South Tournament when they lost twice on the final day despite only needing one win between those two games. Once again, Carter’s dream of holding a trophy was dashed.

Entering her senior season in 2017, there were plenty of changes. Taylor left coaching for an administration position in Averett athletics and new coach Ashley Pyron took the help of the program. The roster also looked different as a number of key players graduated. Carter was one of only two seniors on a roster filled with mostly freshman. If she was going to get that elusive championship trophy, she knew she had to step up.

“As a freshman, I was very much a follower,” Carter recalled. “I could lead, but my personality at the time was to just follow and tell me what to do. As I grew into a senior, it helped me become a leader through playing softball.”

In fact, although she disliked the fact that she moved around at different positions early in her time at Averett, it actually proved to be beneficial because it helped her learn the game from different perspectives on the diamond.

“It helped me tremendously when we were playing in tight games, it helped me become a leader especially as a senior,” she said. “It helped me get everyone together and be that leader and give them advice of what to do.”

Pyron, who coached the program from 2017-18, remembered Carter as a natural leader to her younger teammates.

“She wanted to win and her infectious passion spread to a team full of young freshmen who were inspired by her leadership,” Pyron said. “Jessica demanded everyone’s best effort and clearly knew how to steer the ship as captain. She respected her teammates and set the tone for how Averett ought to play.”

The Cougars’ 2017 had its ups and downs and inconsistencies. The Cougars entered the USA South Conference Tournament with a 22-18 overall record as the No. 2 seed in the East Division. Yet, Averett stayed unbeaten all the way to the championship game, where they faced Ferrum. Just when it looked like the two would have to play the “if necessary” game on the final day, Averett came from behind multiple to win 8-7 in extra innings. Finally, Carter could truly celebrate.

“When we won that championship game, it was almost like a relief for me because it was like, ‘Finally!’” Carter said. “It was like that one hurdle that I had to get through and we had to win. My first reaction was that we finally proved that we were not only strong enough to win the conference regular season but strong enough to win the conference championship. … It was just so great because we had so many freshmen and they were so excited.”

It led her and the Cougars to one more appearance in the NCAA Regionals, this time in Ashland, Virginia. The Cougars knocked off nationally ranked host Randolph-Macon College before falling short against eventual national champion Virginia Wesleyan University and being eliminated in a rematch with Randolph-Macon.

Carter batted a team-high .432 as a senior with 70 hits, 61 runs scored, 36 runs batted in, 15 doubles, nine triples and five home runs. She also went an impressive 44-for-44 on stolen base attempts on her way to NFCA All-America First Team and NFCA All-Region First Team honors, a second consecutive USA South Player of the Year award, her fourth consecutive USA South All-Conference First Team selection and was one of 10 finalists for the NFCA/Schutt Sports Division III National Player of the Year. 

If the on-field accolades weren’t enough, Carter also got the job done in the classroom during her four years. In 2017, she earned Academic All-America First Team recognition from the College Sports Communicators, was named the female recipient of the USA South’s prestigious Don Scalf Award as the student-athlete of the year and was the USA South’s NCAA Woman of the Year. She also was named Averett’s Barbara Kushubar Female Student-Athlete of the Year.

“Jessica was the type of player every coach dreams of coaching,” Pyron said. “Not only was she an extremely talented five-tool player, but Jessica had the grit, work ethic, passion and feisty competitiveness to make her a Hall-of-Fame caliber athlete. As impressive as her playing career was, she was an even better person. Jessica was incredibly bright in the classroom and her academic talents were highlighted in all her achievements.”

In 170 career games, Carter batted .444 with 255 hits — including 44 doubles, 19 triples and 19 home runs — with 119 RBIs, 201 runs scored and 129 stolen bases. She holds the program career records for highest batting average, hits and runs scored (also both USA South records), and she is second all-time in steals.

“When I was going through it, of course I wanted to strive to do that,” Carter said. “… In my brain, I just had the mentality of taking it day by day and give it my 110 percent every day. Every game, I didn’t want to look at the stat sheet. I knew in my head what I did and that was enough for me. But looking back now as an adult, it means so much more.

“My parents instilled a work ethic in me to always strive to be the best I could be,” she added. “I truly believe still to this day that their belief in me helped make me the player I was. … I wanted to perform for my team because I didn’t want to be the reason why we lost.”

After graduating from Averett in 2017, Carter attended Mary Baldwin University’s Murphy Deming College of Health Sciences, where she earned her doctorate in occupational therapy. Since graduation in 2020, she has worked in rehab facilities based out of Burlington and Graham in North Carolina. In 2022, she married her husband Brad, who was by her side during her whole journey at Averett.

As she continues to look back on her time at Averett, Carter feels there was one theme that stands out.

“Averett is home,” she said. “It really is. People say it all the time, but it’s the correct statement. Anytime I do come back, I feel so welcomed every time. You don’t get that everywhere. Averett is a place that I keep in my heart and I always turn back to it when I need it. I still contact people from there if I need them. Averett is the reason I am who I am today. Averett was the reason I was driven to go get my doctorate in occupational therapy. They are the reason I was able to travel different places for softball.”

Averett has also brought her a number of friends and connections. One of which is joining her in the Averett Athletics Hall of Fame this year — Samm Chandler Veasey ’18. The two didn’t really know each other all that well during their first two years at Averett, but when Veasey joined the softball team briefly during the 2016 season, they connected and have been friends ever since. In fact, Carter was the maid of honor in Veasey’s wedding last October.

“It’s the best feeling in the world. Samm Chandler is the human that I strive to be,” Carter said. “She has done everything right and works hard in everything that she does. She and I would joke that if we graduate from Averett and make it into the Hall of Fame, we want to get in together. It ended up working out. It is a true blessing to get in with her because I think she is one of my most highly thought of people in this world. She’s one of the best teammates you could have and one of the best friends you could have. It means a whole lot.”