Part one of a five-part series

By Shannon Fagan, WEIS Sports Director

Lauren Millsaps Coursey’s pitching delivery was unlike anything high school softball hitters in Alabama at the time had seen before.

It wasn’t something Coursey came up with by design. It just simply felt comfortable to her.

“My pitching coach, Eddie McConnell, one of the first lessons I did when I was 11, he said ‘I want you to go home and just do some motions in the yard by yourself. I want you to find something that’s comfortable to you.’

“Why that motion was comfortable to me I don’t know. It was jerky. You had to bend all the way to the ground. It was fast, but it was effective. I guess I just formed a habit of the motion. It was just because he told me to come up with something that I liked and we’d build from there.”

From 2007-11, Coursey built that herky-jerky delivery into a pitching work of art.

She led Cherokee County High School to six county softball championships, five area titles, three regional championships, and a Class 4A state runner-up finish in 2011.

Coursey also etched her name throughout the Alabama High School Athletic Association softball record book with 38 career no-hitters, 1,294 strikeouts, 81 shutouts, six perfect games, and a 0.73 ERA.

She was also a career .355 hitter with 150 RBIs and 209 runs scored.

Alongside her high school teammate Kaitlyn Griffith Revette, Coursey’s high school softball jersey No. 5 was officially retired in 2012.

Now, her remarkable athletic career is being recognized by the Cherokee County Sports Hall of Fame.

Coursey is part of the Class of 2026, along with Cherokee County High School’s Harry Richardson, Cedar Bluff’s Tyrone Moore, Cherokee County High School’s Sam Fife, and Spring Garden’s Ricky Austin.

The 2026 class will formally be inducted at a reception in their honor on Saturday, June 6 at Richard Lindsey Arena at 6 p.m.

The Hall of Fame will also recognize five high school teams of distinction. Football teams being honored are the 1959 Cedar Bluff football state champions (10-0), the 1967 Cherokee County Warriors (9-1-1, first AHSAA all-classification playoffs), and the 1975 Gaylesville Trojans (11-1).

Also being honored are the boys basketball squads from Sand Rock (1965-66 first Final Four team) and Spring Garden (1978-79 state runner-up).

“I was just really excited (to receive the Hall of Fame call),” Coursey said. “I was excited for myself because I know the hard work I’ve put in, but I’m also really excited for everybody else who has poured into me as a person and an athlete over the years.

“The people who have been inducted so far are incredible athletes and people. To be put into that category is just an honor. I’m the youngest to go into this class, but I think they were all great athletes and they’re great role models and mentors for so many people. I just think it’s an honor to be put in with this group.”

To help Coursey perfect her pitching, she held pitching sessions outside of practices with her father Pat on a homemade indoor pitching lane on turf with a net.

“Outside of a few days my sister (Madison) caught me at home, my dad was on that side of the bucket every day,” Coursey said. “We pitched about six days a week. He was the one at the end of the game talking to me about corrections, things I did well at and things I could’ve done better.”

Coursey said there were “hard days” with her father during those pitching sessions.

“My mom (Leslie) finally made the rule where we were not allowed to talk pitching when we came in from pitching,” Coursey said. “She said that whatever was said in that building had to stay in that building. She was tired of listening to the two of us.

“We would get in so many little tiffs, but it was because he had an expectation and I had an expectation. I’ll never forget one time I threw a ball, and he blew up. I was like ‘I’m done for the day. I’m not doing this.’ When I started to walk out, he said ‘Millsaps don’t quit.’ I was like ‘Okay, fair.’ So I started throwing again. He got frustrated with me because I was ill, and then he went to walk out and I was like ‘Millsaps don’t quit.’”

Like father, like daughter.

“I think we were both hard workers and we were both just stubborn,” Coursey said. “We both want to excel, but he always had my back. He was always there. It didn’t matter if it was 10 o’clock at night when I got in from a basketball game. I would be like ‘I want to pitch.’ He was like ‘Okay’ and he’d be ready.

“It didn’t matter if it was Christmas morning. One time, he took his bucket of balls to Hawaii on our family vacation, and I pitched on the beach. Looking back now, I think I wasn’t as grateful in the moment but he put in a lot of time with me. I think that time spent with him was invaluable.”

Coursey also credits former Cherokee County High School softball coach Travis Barnes for her development, not just as a player but as a person.

“He’s a hard coach to play for. He demands greatness. He didn’t accept laziness,” Coursey said of Barnes. “He just pushed and pushed and pushed, but you knew he loved you too. I knew he was going to be hard and there was an expectation, but I knew at the end of the day he was going to be there. He’s someone I still go to and my family goes to for just day-to-day advice. He’s meant a lot to me in my life.

“He taught me a lot about responsibility and being a good teammate. He also taught me a lot of time management skills. His practice schedules were down to the minute. It was never like 3:30 until 4. It was 3:30 until 3:38 you were doing this, and 3:41 until whenever, you were doing that. He had a plan and we executed it.”

Coursey’s athletic career continued beyond high school. She accepted a softball scholarship with Shorter University and was part of the Lady Hawks’ 2012 NAIA national softball championship team.

However, Coursey tore ligaments in her shoulder at the end of her freshman year that required surgery.

But her athletic career didn’t end there.

Coursey transitioned over to volleyball and was part of another championship team. Shorter’s 2012 volleyball squad captured a regional championship and finished as runner-up in the NCCAA Division I National Championship.

Coursey earned her nursing degree from Shorter and is a nurse practitioner at Perry Medical Clinic in Centre, ProHealth Home Health and Hospice, and at the nursing home. She is married to Colby Coursey. The couple has three children: Hadley (8), Ellis (5), and Palmer (2).

Recently, Coursey was honored by the current Lady Warrior softball team for her battle with breast cancer. She threw out the first pitch of the Lady Warriors’ “Pink Out” game against Ohatchee.

In that moment, Coursey’s softball career had come full circle.

“It was a great honor,” she said. “I was able to be back on my home field and watch those girls be successful where my teammates and I were successful. To do that as an advocate for breast cancer, it was just a good afternoon.”