D’Aun Riggs can and has done it all.
In high school, she played soccer, flag football, track and softball, participating in the latter three all during the spring season. She also played football her freshman and eighth-grade year and used to run cross country in middle school. Thankfully, she brought her athleticism to Tallahassee and currently plays as an outfielder for Florida State’s softball team.
D’Aun’s older sister Jessica Wells also played for FSU softball and won a silver medal in the sport when she competed in the Junior Olympics. But Riggs says that following in her sister’s path wasn’t her plan, in fact, her “parents didn’t want her to feel pressured to be in my sister’s spotlight,” so they didn’t make her play softball growing up. Riggs’s first sport was football which she started playing when she was seven. She didn’t care much for softball at first but started playing anyway when she was eight and has come to love the game.
Last season, Florida State softball made it to the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City at the USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium and placed second in the nation for college softball. Riggs says, “It was crazy, we really were living every softball girl’s dream of getting to play in the world series.” The world series ran from June 3 until June 10 and started with eight teams in its bracket. Florida State, ranked at No.10 lost to No. 2 UCLA in the first round of playing with a score of 4-0. However, they went on to beat Arizona State, Oklahoma State, and twice Alabama to make it to the championship game against Oklahoma. FSU won the first game of the finals on June 8, but lost games two and three on the following days, with Oklahoma eventually winning the world series.
Even though the team made it to the world series last year, they’re not going to let themselves become overconfident or careless in preparation for their upcoming season. This year’s team motto is ‘Nobody Cares, Work Harder’ which the team has printed on their shirts. Riggs explains that how far they got last year doesn’t matter in this new season and that “this is a new year, we can’t be living in the past, anything can happen.” Due to NCAA rules, the team couldn’t officially start practice until October. However, they were still allowed to meet during the preseason due to conditioning and weight training together, which they did every day at 6 A.M. to prepare for the new season.
D’Aun does have high hopes for the upcoming 2021 season. Because of COVID-19 rules during the 2020 year, softball wasn’t able to play their fall scrimmage season like usual, so they didn’t have any game experience until February when the official season started. FSU softball began their fall season this year on Oct. 16 against Gulf Coast State College and have since played six more games, with their final to be an away game against the University of Florida on Nov. 14. Although the game scores don’t count for or against either team’s regular-season records, Riggs says, “The fall experience will be great because we’ll get game time to practice and figure out what works, which we weren’t able to do last year.” The 2021 to 2022 roster has 26 members, with 10 freshmen and three transfers.
Outside of softball, Riggs is a sophomore majoring in Communications in Media. She is also one of the nine FSU softball players to be named an All-America Scholar-Athlete by the National Fastpitch Coaches Association for the 2020 to 2021 year. The nomination is submitted by team head coaches to recognize players with 3.5 or higher GPAs along with consideration of other individual honors and rankings.
Here are a few Q&A’s with D’Aun:
Her Campus (HC): Where are you from?
D’Aun Riggs (DR): I’m from Fort Walton Beach, Florida and I went to Choctawhatchee High School.
HC: Do you have any other siblings besides Jessica?
DR: I also have a younger brother named Kobe, he plays baseball.
HC: Do you have any pets?
DR: I have a sugar glider named Lil Homie, but he’s not in Tallahassee he’s back at home.
HC: Where did your parents get the name ‘D’Aun’ from?
DR: My parents named me after Deion Sanders, a football player at FSU. My name is pronounced the same way as his, it’s just spelled differently. My younger brother is named Kobe after Kobe Bryant. They wanted something more unique since they named my older sister Jessica.
HC: When does the official season start?
DR: The first games are Feb. 11 for the JoAnne Graf classic and it’s against Mercer and Loyola.
HC: I called you D1 D’Aun for my article, but do you have any other nicknames you go by?
DR: I’ve had a lot of nicknames, some for fun and some because people couldn’t say my name right. Primetime or Neon D’Aun were popular because those were also Deion Sander’s nicknames. On my high school softball team, I had the nickname “DMoney”.
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