Hannah Flippen, a former Utah softball star and current assistant coach, was named Sunday to the U.S. Olympic team for the 2020 Games in Tokyo.
Flippen, 24, made the 18-player roster after a tryout camp in Oklahoma City. Softball has been restored to the Olympic program after last being staged in Beijing in 2008.
“My time as a Ute has been instrumental in the path to this moment,” Flippen said in a school news release. “I could not be more proud to represent the University of Utah and the United States.”
Flippen concluded her Ute career in 2017 as a two-time Pac-12 Player of the Year and was the conference's Defensive Player of the Year as a senior second baseman. She will be one of five Pac-12 alumni on the U.S. roster and will compete in Tokyo against Mexico's Anissa Urtez, a former Ute teammate.
Flippen posted a career .384 batting average for the Utes as a three-time All-American. She batted .431 as a junior and .413 as a senior, when she received the school’s Occie Evans Award as the most outstanding female student-athlete. In addition to working under Utah coach Amy Hogue, Flippen plays professionally for the Chicago Bandits.
Kurt Kragthorpe has worked continuously for daily newspapers in Utah since 1977. He moved to The Tribune in 1990 and had a nine-year stint as sports editor, in between writing assignments that have included six Olympic Games, as well as several Super Bowls and major golf tournaments. Kurt and his wife, Sandra, enjoy traveling nationally and interna