For most athletes, balancing career aspirations with a love for their sport is challenging and often impossible. However, Penn softball alumni Jennifer Brann has found a way to make things work.
While at Penn, Brann had nothing short of an illustrious career. As just a sophomore, she was one of just two pitchers who earned multiple Ivy League Pitcher of the Week recognitions, and as a team captain in her junior year, she was once again named Ivy League Pitcher of the Week multiple times in addition to being honored as first-team All-Ivy. It was also during this season where Brann had one of her most memorable moments as a player: throwing a perfect game against Brown on Easter with her entire family present.
“It was the first time my two [older] brothers had ever seen me play collegiately,” recalled Brann. “It was just a very cool moment that I got to share with the people that mean the most to me on Easter, which is a really big deal in my family.”
Even though her senior season was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Brann ended her career at Penn ninth for all-time strikeouts and tied for 10th in wins. After graduating from the Wharton School in 2020 with concentrations in statistics and marketing, Brann effectively closed the chapter of her athletic career at Penn, but she has made it clear that part of her has never left the school.
When her current job has brought her back to the City of Brotherly Love, Brann has made it a point to come and visit the team, including joining in on practices to pitch. And to this day, a staple in her everyday wear is a necklace with Penn's stylized P attached, which she received as a Christmas gift during her senior year. On the back of the P, her number, the date of her perfect game, and “UPenn Softball 2020” are engraved. Despite all the assumptions of the P standing for Penn State or even Penn’s biggest rival — Princeton — Brann enjoys the grounding presence of carrying a memory of her time spent in Red and Blue with her at all times.
“It reminds me of where I came from,” noted Brann. “Because I'm a big fan of remembering where you came from. And that you're never too big for anything else.”
That is a particularly good mantra to have, especially for someone who has had the success she has had in her current professional field.
In her sophomore year at Penn, Brann got into contact with professor Abraham Wyner, who was doing research in baseball analytics. From there, she became a teaching assistant for the Wharton Global Youth Program's Moneyball Academy. This was an opportunity for her to see what life could be like in a career that combined her lifelong love for baseball with her educational interests in analytics.
“Staying part of the game, staying part of a team, continuing that drive to win was ultimately what made me want to do baseball,” said Brann. “And then being able to blend my love of analytics and statistics to the game that I love was the perfect world for me.”
Leveraging the connections she had made during her time as both a student at Wharton and a member of the Penn Sports Analytics Group, Brann was able to land herself a job in the analytics department for the Miami Marlins.
For the first one-and-a half years, Brann’s work was mainly with the Marlins’ minor league affiliates, figuring out how analytics could be leveraged to develop prospects into successful big-league players. This past March, Brann transitioned onto the staff for the major league team where she has continued her work, helping out with the team’s hitting as well as performing analyses on opposing pitchers.
Some of the coolest moments she has gotten the chance to experience have been getting her name announced on Opening Day, doing special handshakes with players before games, shagging balls for the team during batting practice, and even teaching a few of the players how to pitch, softball style.
Currently, Brann is the only female baseball analyst working for the Miami Marlins. Working in a male-dominated environment comes with its challenges, but Brann has taken it all in stride, and is confident that the opportunities are there and becoming more plentiful for girls who aspire to enter the baseball world.
On this front, Miami was the perfect fit for Brann. The current general manager of the Marlins, Kim Ng, is the first woman to serve as the general manager of a team in the major four leagues in North America. Ng’s influential role in breaking down traditional gender barriers that permeate throughout all aspects of baseball has paved the path for capable women like Brann to get their foot in the door.
“Everybody treats me as an equal and everyone has since I've been here,” said Brann. “I think things are trending in a direction that if [women] want to get into the baseball industry as a whole, there's definitely opportunities and there's openness among coaches, front office members, and players [to make that happen].”
When those opportunities do arise, Brann will be more than eager to pounce. Moving forward in her career, she will be looking to one day become the director of player development. One of her favorite parts of her job, currently, has been being able to see the minor league players she’s worked with making their major league debuts. As such, Brann sees her biggest impacts to the organization being on the personnel management front.
“An impactful part of my career was the people that made my career happen,” reflects Brann. “And I want to be able to do the same for these guys that really put their heart and souls into becoming a major league baseball player.”
Much like her favorite player growing up, Craig Biggio, Brann is set on “playing the game” the right way, leading with actions rather than words. And thus far, this mindset has served her well, as she is simultaneously helping baseball players achieve their dreams while serving as a role model for women and collegiate athletes looking to continue being involved in their beloved sport beyond college.
When asked if there was anything she would have done differently, Brann emphatically responded, “I'm a big believer and everything happens for a reason and … I wouldn't change anything because [everything that happened] got me here.”
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