Head Coach Tim Walton announced on July 2, 20206, that Charla Echols\u00a0Thompson has been named the program’s Director of Player Development.<\/p>\n
Echols, who played for the Gators from 2020-23, earned NFCA first-team All-America honors at third base in 2021. She ranks among the top 10 in program history in career batting average, on-base percentage, home runs, RBIs and sacrifice flies.<\/p>\n
“Charla had a significant impact on our program as a player and a student coach, and we are confident she will bring the same level of impact as part of our staff,” Walton said.<\/p>\n
“She brings extensive knowledge of the game, playing experience and skills from her days as a Gator and her professional career. We’re thrilled that Charla is back in Orange & Blue.”<\/p>\n
Echols served as a student coach at Florida during the 2023-24 season and played professionally for the Atlanta Smoke of Women’s Professional Fastpitch.<\/p>\n
In her new role, Echols will assist Assistant Coach Aric Thomas in developing the Gators’ offense and helping with infield defense.<\/p>\n
“Florida is home for me, and I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to give back to a program that has given me so much,” Echols said.<\/p>\n
“I’m excited to be back with the Gators and look forward to contributing to the Gator Standard in any way I can.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Head Coach Tim Walton announced on July 2, 20206, that Charla Echols\u00a0Thompson has been named the program’s Director…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-340279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}