Kornacki: Hutchins Honored as Softball's Winningest Coach
4/16/2016 12:00:00 AM | Softball
April 16, 2016
By Steve Kornacki
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- It was two-and-a-half hours before the first pitch, and Carol Hutchins was enjoying the time before the crowd arrived with Marley, the golden retriever she adores.
The crew at the concession stand at Alumni Field was beginning to set up, and the coach knows them well. She ordered up one hot dog, and the vendor knew how to finish the order, adding, "No bun, right?"
Hutchins smiled and nodded. Marley was so distracted by the prospect of his early dinner that he ignored the request of a bystander asking to pet him.
"Marley," said Hutchins, looking down at her faithful dog, "show some manners."
Marley, I swear, seemed to nod and walked over for a few kind words from the bystander, petting and a couple slaps on the back. Marley, I swear, smiled, too.
Friday night (April 15) was a time for Hutchins to be honored for recently becoming the winningest NCAA softball coach of all-time. The 8-0 run-rule win over Ohio State Friday night (April 15) was No. 1,463 after 33 amazing seasons and got the No. 2-ranked Wolverines back atop the Big Ten standings.
I asked her before the game about being feted after the game and what that meant to her.
"It's nice, I guess," said Hutchins, smiling and saying that because it seemed like the polite thing to do and say.
"But you know," she added, "it's really not about me. It's about my staff. I just let them do their thing."
Granted, Hutchins has hired a great coaching staff. Bonnie Tholl and Jennifer Brundage have been with her for a combined 41 seasons, and Hutchins joked during her postgame speech that "they have almost all of those victories" during her 32 seasons at Michigan.
And it's worth noting that the Ohio State coach who has turned around the now second-place Buckeyes is Kelly Kovach Schoenly, an All-America pitcher for Hutchins in 1995 and an assistant at U-M for three seasons. They embraced at home plate after the ceremony, and it got emotional.
"Kelly was over there bawling," said Hutchins, who credited her opponents with the "classy" move of staying for the postgame ceremony after a crushing defeat. "I thought I was going to (cry), and that would be awful."
From left: Jennifer Brundage, Nikki Nemitz, Bonnie Tholl, Carol Hutchins
However, despite the legend's humble pleas, make no mistake about it: she is the gold standard in her profession. Prior to the Women's College World Series last year in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, the other coaches there spoke of her in reverent tones with glowing praise. She smiled and nodded, just as she did Friday, smiling and joking about how she wasn't buying it.
Still, she's won 18 Big Ten regular-season titles, taken the Wolverines to the WCWS 11 times and won it all in 2005 with stars such as ace hurler Jennie Ritter, who will broadcast Sunday's (April 17) 1 p.m. game on the Big Ten Network.
Ritter watched Hutchins hug new Michigan director of athletics Warde Manuel, her coaches and long-time administrator Bitsy Ritt in the dugout after the ceremony.
"It was a stroke of luck that I was here on this day," said Ritter. "But she doesn't want to make a big deal of it. We're all just so proud of her, and I know that she thinks we all did it, but we did it because of what she said to us and what she taught us.
"To me, that's the greatest part about it. She doesn't think it's a big deal, but it's the biggest deal in the world."
-- Hutchins on her accomplishment
Manuel began the postgame program by looking at Hutchins in the dugout and saying to the sellout crowd, "She's mad at us. She doesn't want any of this attention."
Then he chuckled and added, "Thirty-three years of coaching. I hope it is the halfway point in her career."
Hutchins, 58, has such a youthful and enthusiastic approach to life and coaching that it wouldn't be shocking if she coaches for many more years, like Wolverines ice hockey coach legend Red Berenson, 76.
Berenson was the first of many Michigan coaching colleagues to appear in the video tribute shown after the game.
"So, Hutch," began Berenson. "Little did Don Canham know when he hired you that you'd become the all-time winningest coach in college softball ever."
Several giving tributes brought up her victory total, 1,463 and counting.
Field hockey coach Marcia Pankratz said, "That's like over four years of winning a game every single day!"
Bob De Carolis hired Hutchins as his assistant coach at Michigan in 1983 and was instrumental in Canham hiring her as his replacement. He touched on her joining the ranks of basketball's Mike Krzyzewski and Pat Summitt atop the wins ladder in their men's and women's coaching rankings.
"To have your name mentioned alongside Coach K and Pat Summitt underscores the magnitude of this accomplishment," said De Carolis, the former Oregon State athletic director who is back in the Michigan athletic department.
Baseball coach Erik Bakich, whose team was beating Nebraska next door at Fisher Stadium, was very enthusiastic in saying, "I got to coach next to the best softball coach in the history of college softball!"
And the crowd cheered loudly at that point. They love Hutch, and when the coach grabbed the microphone near home plate, she began by saying, "Alumni Field, I love you!"
Then she said, "This isn't about me. It's about the University of Michigan. Any win we ever get in softball is for the University of Michigan. I am honored and humbled to be up here today."
Catcher Aidan Falk's three-run homer in the fifth-inning made it a 4-0 game, and pitcher Megan Betsa's clutch, shutout pitching saw to it that it was a joyous postgame atmosphere.
"She says it's an honor to play for the University of Michigan," said Falk, "and it's an honor to play for her. Being able to play for her and learn from her, which we do every single day, is unimaginable, unbelievable, and there's literally not a time when she talks that I don't get goose bumps."
However, Falk was getting more than "goose bumps" when Hutchins pulled her aside before the left-handed slugger went to bat and cleared the wall in right-center with a laser shot.
Falk said of Hutchins: "She said, 'I'm tired of seeing your left ear,' because I was pulling my head off (the ball). So, I was looking at the ball more. So, I put her voice in my head for the at-bat, and it worked out."
When that comment was relayed, Hutchins grinned and said, "She's going to have my voice in her head for the rest of her life. I am certain of that. They all do."
Betsa was a reflection of her coach in this game.
"She's fearless and inspirational," Betsa said of Hutchins. "She is one of the most fearless people that I have ever met, and that's something that everyone admires in her, and she inspires us every day to get out of our comfort zone whether it is in everyday life or on the softball field. We all mature more than we ever imagined."
The impact she makes on their lives and their games is what makes Hutchins more than a great coach.
"She deserves everything," said second baseman Sierra Romero, the team's top player. "I know she doesn't like the attention. But, I mean, she's the all-time winningest coach. She's a great leader for our program, and she's made me not only a better player but a better person and has prepared me for everything after college. She's an amazing woman."
Hutchins is the two-time National Coach of the Year and 15-time Big Ten Coach of the Year and has been so good for so long that they put her in the National Fastpitch Coaches Association Hall of Fame 10 years ago.
It was her night, as much as she wanted to spread around the credit for her accomplishments. Manuel's comments about her being "mad at us" were recalled.
"I wasn't too high on this," Hutchins said, smiling. "But, you know, I think my mom said it best when she used to tell me that I was the luckiest person she ever met. I'd had so many great things happen to me. I don't know why.
"But, really, I'm just very fortunate. Like I say, 'I've had a lot of great people in my life.' And no matter what, my job is a people job. I work with people and with good people good things happen. So, it just means there are a lot of good people out there, and I'm really lucky."
Her players beg to differ on who's the luckiest in their relationships with Hutchins. They know what Marley also knows: The coach will guide you, take care of you and love you dearly.
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