- Mary Kay Amicone won more than 800 games across BYU, Salt Lake Community College, and Weber State, started BYU's varsity program, and was the first woman to coach high school baseball in Utah.
- This story sits inside Utah's softball lane and connects to the larger statewide sports picture.
- The story is backed by 5 sources and a visible last-verified date.
July 26, 2026
July 26, 2026
4 min / 893 words
5 official links
Most coaching careers belong to one program. Mary Kay Amicone's belongs to a state.
Amicone headlines Weber State's 2026 Athletics Hall of Fame class, announced July 23, 2026, alongside track and field athlete David Blair, football quarterback Cameron Higgins, and men's basketball coach Randy Rahe. The Weber State honor is the latest in a run of recognition — she entered the Utah Sports Hall of Fame in 2025, and in April 2026 Weber State named its softball field after her.
What makes her unusually relevant to statewide coverage is the map her career draws. She coached at Salt Lake Community College, started the varsity program at BYU, and finished at Weber State. She played collegiately at both Weber State and Utah. She coached high school softball and baseball. Very few people in Utah sports have touched that many levels of the same pipeline.
Weber State: the program's defining era
Amicone retired in May 2024 after 11 seasons leading Weber State softball, with 297 wins at the school. She is the Big Sky Conference's all-time leader in both wins and winning percentage.
The program record under her includes 10 Big Sky championships and four NCAA Tournament appearances. Weber State became the first Big Sky softball program to win an NCAA Tournament game, and the first to earn a 3-seed in a regional — two firsts that belong to the conference, not just the school.
In April 2026, Weber State named its softball field after her.
SLCC: 430 wins and a junior college power
Before Ogden, Amicone spent years at Salt Lake Community College, where she won 430 games, claimed seven conference championships, and took teams to three NJCAA national championship appearances.
That stretch matters to how Utah softball actually works. Junior college is where a large share of the state's players get developed and then move on to four-year programs — the same dynamic this site covers through the JUCO pipeline. A coach who won 430 games at SLCC was shaping the supply side of Utah college softball for a decade before she ever took a Division I job.
BYU: starting a program from nothing
Amicone was BYU's first varsity softball head coach, running the program from 2000 to 2002. In 2001 she led the Cougars to the Mountain West Conference championship and was named Coach of the Year.
Starting a varsity program is a different job than inheriting one. There is no roster, no recruiting history, no returning culture, and no track record to sell to a recruit's parents. Winning a conference title in year two of a program's existence is the part of her résumé that is hardest to replicate.
The playing career, and a Utah first
Before coaching, Amicone played two years at Weber State and two years at the University of Utah, earning All-America honors as a Ute.
She also coached Bingham High to a state softball title, and she was the first woman to coach high school baseball in Utah, at Jordan High. That last detail is a piece of state sports history that tends to get a single line in a bio and deserves more.
Across BYU, SLCC, and Weber State, she accumulated more than 800 career wins as a head coach.
Why this is the most valuable Utah softball story available
Softball is one of the newer sports on this site, added to the coverage map in 2026. The challenge with a new sport hub is that it usually starts with schedules and results — thin, low-value content that nobody searches for twice.
Amicone is the opposite. Her career is the connective tissue that explains why Utah softball is competitive at all: a junior college pipeline that develops players, a private university program that had to be built from scratch, a Division I program that became the Big Sky's standard, and a high school layer feeding all of it. One person is the throughline.
She is also, by a wide margin, the most valuable long-form interview a Utah sports publication could pursue right now. The questions almost write themselves: how has Utah softball changed across four decades, what does SLCC actually contribute to athlete development, what did building BYU's program require, and where is the state still falling short on supporting women's sports.
## Key facts: - Honor: Headlines Weber State's 2026 Athletics Hall of Fame class, announced July 23, 2026, with David Blair, Cameron Higgins, and Randy Rahe - Weber State: 297 wins over 11 seasons; retired May 2024; Big Sky all-time leader in wins and winning percentage - Weber State program firsts: first Big Sky softball program to win an NCAA Tournament game; first to earn a regional 3-seed; 10 Big Sky championships and four NCAA Tournament appearances - Salt Lake Community College: 430 wins, seven conference titles, three NJCAA national championship appearances - BYU: first varsity head coach (2000-02); 2001 Mountain West champion and Coach of the Year - Playing career: two years at Weber State, two years at Utah (All-American) - Utah firsts: state softball title at Bingham High; first woman to coach high school baseball in Utah, at Jordan High - Career total: more than 800 wins as a head coach - Also inducted into the Utah Sports Hall of Fame in 2025; Weber State named its softball field after her in April 2026 - Sources: Weber State Athletics, Standard-Examiner, KSL Sports
