BATON ROUGE — LSU softball head coach Yvette Girouard has been chosen to receive the Kiwanis Club of LSU’s 2003 Outstanding Leadership Award.
The honor will be presented to Girouard and the annual awards luncheon to be held at the LSU Faculty Club on Tuesday, May 6. The award is based on leadership within the LSU community and on behalf of LSU and given to a current employee of the university. Former LSU executive vice chancellor and provost Dan Fogel, currently the president of the University of Vermont, was last year’s recipient of the award.
With a 4-3 win over Alabama on March 29, Girouard became just the ninth coach in any division in NCAA history to record 900 career wins. In her 23rd season as a head coach, she became just the seventh coach in NCAA Division I history to reach that historic milestone and one of only six active coaches with 900 career wins.
This week, Girouard surpassed retired Cal State Fullerton coach Judi Garman to move into sixth place in NCAA Division I career wins. She currently ranks among the career leaders in NCAA Division I wins (No. 6 – 914) and winning percentage (No. 5 – .763) and among the active NCAA Division I coaching leaders in wins (No. 6) and winning percentage (No. 5). Among the three NCAA divisions, Girouard ranks eighth in all-time wins and ninth in all-time winning percentage.
The reigning SEC and Louisiana Coach of the Year, Girouard has 22-straight winning seasons to her credit. She has coached 30 All-Americans, 13 Academic All-Americans and taken her teams to 12 NCAA Regionals. Guiding LSU to its first Womens College World Series appearance in 2001, she became just the third coach in NCAA history to take two programs to the WCWS after leading UL-Lafayette to three World Series appearances in the 1990s.
Along with current assistant coach James DeFeo and former assistant Lori Osterberg, the 2001 Tiger coaching staff was named the National Fastpitch Coaches Associations National Coaching Staff of the Year. She was also named the Coach of the Year by the Southeastern Conference and earned her third-straight Louisiana Sports Writers Association Coach of the Year honor.
The National Coach of the Year in 1990 and 1993, she has also earned five South Region Coach of the Year honors. In addition, she has been named coach of the year by three separate conferences: the Southeastern in 2001 and 2002, the Sun Belt in 2000 and the Southland in 1984, 1985 and 1987.
The Broussard native also served a three-year term as the South Region Representative on the NCAA All-American Committee and served two two-year stints on the NCAA South Regional ranking committee. She has most recently been named a member of a six-person panel assembled by the Amateur Softball Association and the United States Olympic Committee to develop a set criteria for teaching hitting.
Softball Enters 2004 Season Ranked at No. 15