Every parent of a 5'2" shortstop has run this math in the bleachers: how tall do they have to be to play at the next level? The only published measurements I could find cover a few dozen players, so I counted all of them.
The average college softball player is listed at 5'6". That is the average of 15,014 heights posted by 753 NCAA softball programs for the 2026 season, and the middle player is 5'6" too. Pioneer Pennant Process carries the rosters, costs and coaches of NCAA softball schools, and these are the heights on those rosters: how they split by division, by position and by class year, and what a listed height can and cannot tell you.
17.5% are listed at 5'3" or shorter, and 9.3% at 5'10" or taller
67.1 inches for pitchers against 65.7 for everyone else
How tall is the average college softball player?
The average college softball player is 66.0 inches tall, which is 5'6", and the median player is also 5'6". Three heights hold the sport: 2,057 players are listed at 5'5", 2,204 at 5'6" and 2,110 at 5'7", which is 6,371 of the 15,014.
The average American woman is shorter. The CDC's National Center for Health Statistics puts the average height of women 20 and older at 63.5 inches, from its August 2021 to August 2023 measurements, so a softball roster runs about two and a half inches above the country. The range is narrow all the same. The shortest listed player is 4'9" and the tallest is 6'4", and only 336 players, 2.2%, are listed at 6'0" or taller.
The 15,014 come from 18,119 roster entries. The rest list no height or one that cannot be a height, and two entries that look like heights (4'5" and 7'7") were thrown out as typos.
Are Division I softball players taller than Division II and III?
Division I players are the tallest, but the gap between divisions is small. Division I players average 66.6 inches, Division II 65.8 and Division III 65.4, so the whole spread from the top division to the bottom is about an inch and a quarter.
| Division | Average height | Listed 5'3" or shorter | Listed 5'10" or taller |
|---|---|---|---|
| Division I | 66.6 in | 11.6% | 13.3% |
| Division II | 65.8 in | 18.3% | 7.5% |
| Division III | 65.4 in | 24.0% | 6.0% |
| All three | 66.0 in | 17.5% | 9.3% |
The difference shows up in the tails, not the middle. In every division the 5'4" to 5'7" band holds more than half of the players (52.9% in Division I, 56.2% in Division II and 55.1% in Division III). A Division III player is twice as likely as a Division I player to be listed at 5'3" or shorter, 24.0% against 11.6%, and a Division I player is more than twice as likely to be listed at 5'10" or taller, 13.3% against 6.0%.
The counts behind the table are 5,780 Division I players from 300 schools, 4,443 Division II players from 213 schools and 4,791 Division III players from 240 schools.
Can a short player play college softball?
A short player can play college softball at every level, because 17.5% of listed players are 5'3" or shorter. That is about one player in six, and in Division III it is nearly one in four (24.0%).
What the number does not say is that height never matters to a coach. It says a shorter player is on a roster in every division. The next section is the one place the data shows height carrying weight.
Are pitchers taller than other college softball players?
Pitchers are the tall ones: the 3,035 pitchers with a listed height average 67.1 inches, against 65.7 for every other player, and 18.7% of pitchers are listed at 5'10" or taller against 6.9% of everyone else. The gap holds in all three divisions.
| Division | Pitchers | Everyone else |
|---|---|---|
| Division I | 67.8 in | 66.2 in |
| Division II | 66.7 in | 65.7 in |
| Division III | 66.2 in | 65.3 in |
The tallest group of all is Division I pitchers, who average 67.8 inches, nearly 5'8". The other positions sit close together. The positions below are grouped by the first match in a player's listed positions (pitcher, then catcher, infield, outfield), so a "C/INF" counts as a catcher.
| Position | Players | Average height |
|---|---|---|
| Pitchers | 3,035 | 67.1 in |
| Catchers | 1,623 | 65.9 in |
| Infielders | 4,065 | 65.9 in |
| Outfielders | 3,080 | 65.3 in |
Outfielders are the shortest group, at 65.3 inches, about six-tenths of an inch shorter than infielders and catchers.
Are seniors taller than freshmen on college softball rosters?
No. Freshmen average 65.9 inches, sophomores 66.0, juniors 66.0 and seniors 66.1, so the four classes are within a quarter of an inch of each other. If shorter players were being cut or drifting away over four years, seniors would average taller than freshmen, and they do not.
These are four different groups of players on the same rosters in the same season, not the same players followed over time, so the pattern is evidence, not proof. The class-year counts are 3,895 freshmen, 3,913 sophomores, 3,551 juniors and 3,230 seniors.
What a listed height does not tell you
A listed height is what the school's roster says, not a measurement, so treat each figure as the school's best guess.
Division I heights come from the players who appeared in at least one game in the 2026 season, because that roster is built from the game records Pioneer Pennant Charts reads. Division II and Division III heights come from the full roster each school posts on its athletics site, bench players included. The Division I figure leaves out players who never got in a game.
The one published measurement of NCAA softball players' height I found before this is a 2009 study that measured 19 Division II and 16 Division III softball players, so 35 players against 15,014 here.
If your player is the short one in the family photo, the answer to "how tall do I have to be?" is a roster, not a number. Find the schools where players her size actually play, by level and position, in the Process school finder, and see how the divisions differ in Division III or in our post on which division fits.
Method. Heights are from the 2026 season roster table in the Pioneer Pennant Process database, counted on October 27, 2026. Division I rows are the Pioneer Pennant Charts game records (players who appeared in at least one game); Division II and III rows are the full rosters scraped from school athletics sites. A height counts when the school lists it in feet and inches and it falls between 4'9" and 6'4"; two listings outside that range were left out. Two schools whose records are matched to the wrong federal College Scorecard entry are left out of the counts. Positions are grouped by the first match in the listed position (pitcher flag, then catcher, infield, outfield). Every figure was re-checked against the database before this post went out, and the count will drift as schools update their rosters. The 63.5-inch figure for American women is the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (August 2021 to August 2023).
Figuring out where your player fits in college?
Pioneer Pennant Process covers all 978 NCAA softball schools: coaches and how to reach them, cost after aid, majors, and a fit score built on one rule. Go where you are going to play, not as high as you can go.