The CT Softball Blog

BRISTOL—This is a love story. So, yes, a diamond is certainly involved.

This story isn’t about the carats on her finger, mind you. Instead, it’s about a 3,600-square-foot diamond with three bases, a plate, a circle and a rubber, and a vast grass outfield; a place where dreams come true, hearts both soar and break, and the future is just one pitch away from the past.

This is a story about two softball coaches—Marissa Morris and Julio Figueroa—who met, coached together, fell in love and started a family.

Together, they have two girls—Savannah and Charlotte, perhaps a future pitcher-catcher battery in the making.

Together, they have dozens more girls as part of their extended family as both coach in the CT Titans travel organization based out of Terryville and Bristol.

This fall, that softball family grew even more when Morris was named the head varsity softball coach at Ledyard High School, and Figueroa was named the head coach at Newington.

And, somewhere down the line, Morris and Figueroa will officially and lawfully become one—and not in the always confusing “flex-designated player” kind of way—but as husband and wife; for better or worse, for balls and strikes.

“I think we do make each other truly better, both from a competitive standpoint and in our lives,” Figueroa said. “We even each other out very well, both from a softball perspective and a life perspective. We are both very ambitious people. We had both have lofty goals and we both have dreams that we just want to continue to build that life together.”

It was, of all places, on a golf course when they first met, during one of the CT Titans benefit golf tournaments.

“I honestly didn’t notice him because I was working, I was running the registration table,” Morris said. “I was just going about my day.”

Plus, Morris was seeing somebody so the only tension at the course that day was when the golfers and parents stood over a 15-foot putt for birdie.

Figueroa, however, did admit to noticing his future wife right away.

“I walked in, and I immediately saw her,” he said. “It was the craziest thing. I walked in the front door, I looked to the right, and I looked at (some friends) and said, “Who’s that?’”

Those friends were CT Titans president Jeff Linsky and his wife Annilise, who have known both Morris and Figueroa separately for close to 10 years.

“They’re awesome people. They really are,” Linsky said. “I think they do such a great job separating what let’s call it their professional life with their personal life. I admire the fact that Marissa came back to coach with us after playing with us. And I’m very proud of who Julio is as a person. Anything he sets his mind to or anything he touches he tries to do his best. He’s very determined.”

The night of the golf tournament, Morris and Figueroa didn’t really talk until they found themselves sitting a table for 10—with each of them plopped down alongside the proverbial third wheel, who in this case happened to be Titans co-founder Mark LaRosa, as others had gotten up to mingle or help out.

“We were just talking and getting to know each other,” Morris said.

When the evening ended, however, Figueroa left the golf tournament having won a gift card to Cava, an Italian Restaurant in Southington, but without the phone number of the girl he would someday fall in love with.

“It’s a fancy restaurant and I was like ‘Oh we should go sometime’ and he was like, ‘Yeah,’” Morris recalled. “And then he didn’t get my number. I’ve never let him live that down.”

Foul ball!

“I’m not going to say I was shy, I just didn’t get her number,” Figueroa said. “It was just one of those things where I messed up. I didn’t get her number.”

The next pitch came down the line when Morris, now single, messaged Figueroa on Facebook, wishing him a happy birthday.

“The rest is history,” Figueroa said.

Figueroa had always been hanging out at a lot of Titans events as his best friend is Jeff Linsky, president of the Titans organization.

Morris was coaching one of the program’s teams and needed an assistant coach, so Figueroa joined her staff.

“I could just tell he loved softball, so I just said you should come coach,” she said.

The pair started their joint coaching career with the Titans and when Morris accepted the varsity coaching job at Rockville High School in Vernon, Figueroa came along for the ride, helping The Rock program any way possible—from taking photos to acting as emcee on Senior Night to handling GameChanger duties.

The duo has been together, on the field and off, for more than three years now, becoming the parents of 18-month-old Savannah and five-month-old Charlotte along the way.

Last March, Morris and Figueroa went on a date and were walking along the shores of the Long Island Sound in Madison when Morris spotted the familiar yellow glow of a softball in the rocks.

She picked it up and saw the words written across it.

“Will You Marry Me?”

Figueroa, swinging for the fences, dropped to one knee, and popped his question.

Morris said “Yes” and raised the ball above her head as if she had just recorded the final out of a tournament championship.

Now, the two are hoping to experience that kind of moment again, only this time embarking on separate coaching careers at the high school level.

Figueroa will be at Newington, a Class LL school, while Morris and Ledyard will be in Class L. That means no games each other. Not even preseason scrimmages.

“We can’t do that. We’re way too competitive,” Morris said with a laugh. “We do rock, papers, scissors just to see who will change a diaper.”

This new team that formally formed in March might appear to be vastly different from each other.

Morris is the Torrington kid, who played at UConn, and found her way back into the coaching ranks.

Figueroa is a Puerto Rico-born Army Veteran, raised in part in Meriden, who served two tours of duty, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and was awarded two Purple Hearts.

Yet as they stood outside the CT Titans indoor training facility here in Bristol, on a wind-swept winter’s day, their rapport with each other was obvious to the reporter quizzing them about their new jobs and their lives together.

The way he looked at her. The way she looked at him.

They are like puzzle pieces that locked together to paint the perfect picture of tomorrow.

Life in never perfect, as both of them know.

The innings fly by. First pitches are thrown and final outs are recorded. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.

Morris, knowing the life her future husband has led, knows she blessed to be part of this union.

“My God, I can’t even put that into words,” she said. “I’m not trying to be sappy, but I mean, I always tell him that he needs to write a book about his life. It’s an honor to know him and an even bigger honor to be his partner.”

Two diamonds in the rough finding each other and building a life together until the final out is recorded.

Sounds like a softball love story to me.

(From The Dugout is a regular column written by CT Softball Blog Publisher John Nash)

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