Melissa Inouye is the head softball coach at Fordham University in Bronx, New York, and the 2026 season will be her eighth leading the program. Since taking over in 2019, she has guided Fordham to two Atlantic 10 championships, in 2019 and 2022, and to the program's 10th NCAA Tournament appearance with the 2022 title run. Her first season as head coach ended with an Atlantic 10 regular-season championship and conference tournament title, and she was named the league's Coach of the Year.
Fordham remained a consistent postseason team under Inouye. In 2025, the Rams reached the Atlantic 10 Championship game for the third time during her tenure after knocking off the tournament's No. 2 and No. 1 seeds in Washington, D.C. The team featured standout seasons from Sydney Wells, Neleh Nogay, and Holly Beeman, with multiple single-season records falling and Fordham collecting 10 all-conference honors shared by seven players, one of the highest single-season totals in program history. In 2024, Fordham again advanced to the postseason and posted one of the nation's top doubles totals, with four players recording at least 12 doubles. In 2023, Nogay became just the eighth freshman in program history to earn first-team All-Atlantic 10 recognition, while Nogay and Beeman both received all-rookie honors as the Rams qualified for their 20th straight Atlantic 10 Tournament.
