LSU Grad to Make History as First Female Manager in Minor League Baseball History

A graduate of Louisiana State University is making history.

According to MLB.com, Rachel Balkovec has reportedly been named manager of a minor league baseball team. This makes her the first full-time female manager in Minor League baseball history.

Balkovec will manage the Yankees' Low-A affiliate Tampa Tarpons next season.

While she is from Omaha, Nebraska, the 34-year-old Balkovec received her master's degree in sports administration from LSU back in 2012.

That was the same year that she first got into pro ball as she served as a minor league strength and conditioning coach with the St. Louis Cardinals.

Balkovec, a former softball catcher at Creighton and New Mexico, moved from the Cardinals to the Houston Astros in 2016. There she was hired as the Latin American strength and conditioning coordinator, a position for which she learned Spanish. She later became the strength and conditioning coach at Double-A Corpus Christi.

She briefly left baseball in 2018 to pursue a second master's degree at Vrije University in the Netherlands, where she also worked with the country's national baseball and softball teams.

She then worked for Driveline Baseball, a data-driven baseball center that has trained numerous major leaguers, before being hired by New York.

Balkovec joined the Yankees in November 2019 as a minor league hitting each.

Many celebrities have shared their congratulations on social media, but none more appropriate than tennis great Billie Jean King.