Carol Hutchins

A native of Lansing, Michigan, Hutchins attended Everett High School, where she was an All-City basketball player from 1973 to 1975. Hutchins also played for the Lansing Laurels, an Amateur Softball Association fastpitch team that finished as high as fifth nationally. After graduating from high school, Hutchins attended Michigan State University, where she played on the Spartans varsity basketball and softball teams from 1976 to 1979. Hutchins was a Michigan State starting shortstop as a freshman and helped the Michigan State softball team win an Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) National Softball Championship. ==Coaching career==

After graduating from Michigan State in 1979, Hutchins attended Indiana University Bloomington where she received a master's degree in physical education in 1981. She began her coaching career as an assistant coach for Indiana Hoosiers softball in 1981 and next became the head coach for the Ferris State Bulldogs softball in 1982. In 1983, she was hired as an assistant coach at the University of Michigan, a position she held from 1983 to 1984. She became the head coach of the Michigan Wolverines softball team in 1985. When she took over as head coach, Hutchins reportedly "had a tiny salary, an only slightly larger budget, and had to take care of her own field, throwing down lime and riding the lawn tractor." She led the Michigan softball team to its first (NCAA) Women's College World Series championship in 2005. The Ann Arbor News described the team's accomplishment this way:"What happened during the past five months might be the most unlikely accomplishment in the history of a storied athletics program, analogous to setting out to win an NCAA hockey title at the University of New Mexico. Then doing it. Now, before you dismiss that as hyperbole, consider a few factors. Like the fact that, because of cold weather, the Wolverines played their first 33 games on the road, roughly half the season. Try doing that in football or basketball. Then there's recruiting. Softball is still a sport dominated by West Coast talent. ... There's a reason no team East of the Mississippi had won an NCAA softball title until now." The performance of the 2005 team also set Michigan records in several categories: • The team's 65 victories was the most in program history. In 2007, she became the seventh coach in NCAA softball history, and the first in any sport at the University of Michigan, to reach 1,000 career wins. On February 25, 2022, Hutchins reclaimed the record as the winningest coach in NCAA Division I history, passing Mike Candrea's record of 1,674. On May 1, 2022, she became the first softball coach to reach the 1,700 wins milestone. On August 24, 2022, Hutchins announced her retirement after 38 years as head coach at Michigan. At the time of her retirement, she was the winningest coach in NCAA Division I history with a record of 1,707–555–5. During her career as head coach, Michigan never suffered a losing season, and she led the team to 22 Big Ten regular-season titles from 1995 to 2021, including nine in a row from 2008 to 2016, 10 Big Ten Tournament championships, and qualified for the NCAA Tournament 29 times, including each of the last 27 years. ==Honors and personal life==

In 2000 Hutchins was inducted into the Greater Lansing Sports Hall of Fame. In 2006, she was inducted into the National Fastpitch Coaches Association Hall of Fame. In 2011, she was inducted into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame. She was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 2022. Hutchins is an avid mountain biker and runner, and continued playing organized softball and hockey until 1998. ==Head coaching record==