The Scholarship Made My Dream Come True

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Category: Giving

matty moss

Lady Vols pitcher Matty Moss is a senior majoring in social work. She is grateful for the Frankie E. Wade Scholarship.

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When Matty Moss was nine, her parents, Josh and Reina Moss, drove her and a friend from their home in Greenville, South Carolina, to the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City, where they saw Monica Abbott (’07) pitch for the Lady Vols. “She threw the ball so hard,” Moss says. “I remember thinking, ‘I want to be just like that. I want to be as successful as she is and walk around with such class and dignity.’ After the game she gave me a hug. I thought to myself, ‘I can be done right now and it’s OK.’ She is my ultimate role model.”

Near the end of her senior season, Moss—with a career record of 67-16, 11 saves, and a 2.06 ERA—has settled into a comfortable rotation of doing long relief for starters Ashley Rogers and Caylan Arnold.

My dream was to pitch for UT like Monica Abbott, and the scholarship made my dream come true.

– Matty Moss, Lady Vols pitcher and recipient of the Frankie E. Wade Scholarship

Matty Moss

“My mom inspired me to be a pitcher,” says Moss. “She pitched growing up in San Diego, and she has been my pitching coach since I was eight.” Moss chose UT over the College of Charleston, South Carolina, and LSU. “I loved Tennessee. I’d visited here a lot. I like the coaching staff. It’s very family oriented.”

With her original career goal of being an FBI agent, Moss was drawn to UT’s criminal justice program and the Anthropological Research Facility known as the Body Farm. It helped that co-head coaches Ralph and Karen Weekly are a former FBI agent and a former lawyer, respectively. “But social work is a better fit for me,” says Moss. “In law enforcement, the personality is more assertive, and I’m not entirely that personality. I like working with kids. I want to work with them before they get involved in the criminal justice system.

“I am so grateful for the Frankie E. Wade Scholarship,” says Moss. “It helped me stay out of debt, and I’m just in awe of the generosity that it shows. I’ve met Frankie a couple of times, and she is such a great person. My dream was to pitch for UT like Monica Abbott, and the scholarship made my dream come true.”

Photos courtesy of Tennessee Athletics