When the final pitch was delivered in a Michigan softball spring break game against Northern Kentucky in 2022, the Wolverines did far more than record a win in the young season.
The 3-0 victory on Feb. 25 against the Norse made coach Carol Hutchins the winningest softball coach in NCAA history with 1,674 wins.
A graduate of Michigan State, where she played varsity basketball and softball, Hutchins joined U-M in 1983 as an assistant coach who also worked as an office typist. She was named head coach in 1985 and led the softball program for 38 years before retiring in 2022.
Along the way, she amassed an NCAA championship in 2005 — a first for the softball program — 12 appearances in the Women’s College World Series, 22 Big Ten regular-season titles and 10 Big Ten Tournament championships. Her teams qualified for the NCAA tournament 29 times.
Hutchins’ final coaching record stood at 1,707-551-5 and a career winning percentage of .755. She is the winningest coach in U-M history.
Her career evolved as U-M and higher education were expanding opportunities for women athletes because of Title IX, the 1972 federal rule forbidding discrimination by sex in the programs of any school that received federal funding. “Now we find that the world understands that women matter,” she said in 2022. “That if sports and athletics are valuable for men, they’re equally valuable for young women.”
As a coach, Hutchins always stressed the importance and value of the team as a family, with players and coaches supporting each other through the highs and lows of a season.
A year after Hutchins retired, athletic director Warde Manuel asked the Board of Regents to name Michigan’s softball field Carol Hutchins Stadium. “I cannot think of a better way to recognize her contribution to the U-M community, the game of softball and women’s athletics, than to rename the venue she put on the map,” he said.
A standing ovation for the longtime coach followed the regents’ unanimous approval. “The biggest honor was being a coach to so many young women,” Hutchins said.
“They get a fantastic degree. They go on to become all sorts of wonderful members of society. Athletics is meant to be part of education and at Michigan we do that really well. It is the honor of my lifetime to be a part of this program.”
