DJ Sanders, one of the rising stars in collegiate coaching, enters her third season as an assistant coach for the Tigers. Co-head coaches Chris and Kate Malveaux announced her as part of their inaugural staff on June 16, 2024.
Sanders works primarily with the Tiger outfield as well as assisting Chris Malveaux in running the Tiger offense.
The 2026 season was a rebuilding year for the Tigers following the graduation of nine seniors. Auburn finished with 27 victories, including upset wins over No. 13 Clemson, No. 18 Oregon, and No. 4 Florida during the regular season.
The Tigers showed incredible fight during the 2026 SEC Tournament in Lexington to close the season. Despite entering as the No. 14 seed, Auburn upset Missouri and Texas A&M to advance to the quarterfinals. It marked Auburn’s first SEC Tournament quarterfinal appearance since 2023 and the program’s first back-to-back wins at the tournament since 2019. Auburn set seven individual or team records during its SEC Tournament run.
Sanders had a completely new group of outfielders for the 2026 season. She guided the group to a .941 fielding percentage with five total outfield assists. Auburn’s offense continued to trend upward with more than 70 individual career highs established during the 2026 season. Auburn concluded the year with 68 home runs, marking the first time the Tigers recorded back-to-back seasons with 65-plus home runs since 2022 and 2023.
The Tigers opened the 2025 season with a 20–1 start, their best since 2022. Auburn finished the season with a 35–24 record, which included winning four of its final three SEC series. With its appearance at the 2025 Tallahassee Regional, Auburn extended its streak of consecutive NCAA postseason appearances to 11.
With a veteran group of seniors, Sanders led the Tiger outfield to a .988 fielding percentage in her first season. Auburn recorded 15 outfield assists in 2025, the most in a season since 2015. Abbey Smith led the group with seven assists in center field, tied for the third most in a season by an Auburn outfielder and the most since 2010. Icess Tresvik added five outfield assists to bring her Auburn career total to 14, tying Branndi Melero for third in Auburn history.
Offensively, Auburn saw gains in essentially every statistical category in the first year of the Malveaux era, which included a 60-point jump in slugging percentage. Auburn slugged 68 home runs in 2025. It was the most hit by the team since 2022 and finished tied for the fifth most in a single season at Auburn. Five different Tigers hit at least 10 home runs in 2025, the most in a season since 2015.
Sanders joined Auburn after spending the previous season as an assistant coach at Ole Miss, where she worked with the Rebel offense. Sanders also had coaching stints with Memphis, Mississippi State, and Missouri while bringing a wealth of playing knowledge both at the collegiate and professional levels.
In her lone season with the Rebels, Sanders helped Ole Miss to 31 wins and an eighth straight NCAA Regional appearance. She guided Aynslie Furbush to 2024 All-SEC honors as Furbush turned in the best offensive season of her career. She tallied 49 hits and finished second on the team with a .325 batting average while ranking 13th in the SEC with 44 RBI.
Furbush added NFCA All-South Region honors alongside Jalia Lassiter. A two-time NFCA All-Region selection, Lassiter finished second on the team with 61 hits in 2024 and was key to the Ole Miss offense with 34 runs scored and 29 RBI. Lassiter was just the fourth Rebel in program history to earn multiple all-region accolades.
Sanders joined Ole Miss after serving as an assistant coach at Memphis. At the helm of the offense, she worked primarily as the hitting coach and led scouting of opposing pitchers. Sanders also worked with the outfielders in her one season with the Tigers.
Prior to her stop in Memphis, Sanders spent one season at Mississippi State and was part of the program’s historic run to the NCAA Super Regional in 2022. She helped assist the Bulldog offense as a hitting instructor and led the scouting of opposing pitchers. With Sanders’ guidance, Mississippi State broke the single-season record in home runs and turned in top-five marks in program history in both runs (312) and RBI (282).
Sanders got her start in coaching as a graduate assistant in 2020 at Missouri, helping the Tigers to a 61–24 record across her two seasons.
Collegiately, Sanders played her first three seasons as the starting shortstop at Louisiana. As a junior, Sanders led the NCAA in home runs (29), RBI (82), and slugging percentage (1.013) en route to earning NFCA First Team All-American honors and being named one of 10 finalists for the USA Softball National Player of the Year award.
She also played for the USA Softball Junior National Team at the World Cup of Softball and Junior Women’s World Championships in 2015.
For her senior year, she transferred to Oregon and earned All-Pac-12 honors in 2018. In her lone season in Eugene, she helped lead the Ducks to a Pac-12 Championship while blasting 16 home runs and collecting 51 RBI.
After graduation, Sanders was drafted No. 21 overall by the Chicago Bandits in the 2018 NPF Draft. She made her professional debut with the NPF on June 16, 2018, and recorded her first career hit the next day. In her rookie season, Sanders batted .306 and ranked third on her squad in home runs.
Sanders also played professionally with Athletes Unlimited for four seasons. The Columbus, Mississippi, native totaled 987 points through seven games in 2023. She competed in the AUX exhibition season in 2022, totaling 808 points in eight games with a .500 batting average. The previous year she tallied 1,352 points and finished 15th overall in the league, slugging a pair of home runs and collecting five RBI in 11 games. In the summer of 2020, Sanders finished 14th individually in the inaugural AU season with 1,520 points and batted .333 with four home runs over 14 games.