Jan Hutchinson Receives USSA's C. Vivian Stringer Coaching Award

The United States Sports Academy has named Bloomsburg University Softball/Women's Field Hockey head coach Jan Hutchinson the winner of the 2006 C. Vivian String Coaching Award. Hutchinson will personally accept the award on 22 July at the USSA graduation ceremonies in Daphne.

Hutchinson has won more than 1,500 games in softball and field hockey, only the fourth NCAA coach and first woman to accomplish this feat in combined sports. The 28-year college coaching veteran has won 12 national championships in Division II field hockey. She was the first coach to claim four straight national titles (1996-99) in field hockey and was the first field hockey coach in any division to reach 500 wins. Hutchinson has led the field hockey team to the national championship title game in 21 of the last 25 years.

Her softball team won the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) national championship in 1982 before making 22 straight appearances in the NCAA tournament. She is one of only seven NCAA softball coaches in any division to reach 1,000 wins and is nine wins shy of the Division-II record for most wins.

Hutchinson has coached 47 field hockey players that have received 85 All-American awards, while nine of her players have received 10 National Player of the Year awards. In softball 31 of her players have received 51 All-American awards and two players have garnered National Player of the Year accolades.

Overall, her record in field hockey is 501-69-20 and 1,003-226-2 in softball for a combined record of 1,504-295-22.

A 1971 graduate of East Stroudsburg University, Hutchinson also earned a master's degree in education from the school in 1979. Prior to Bloomsburg, she initiated the women's physical education program at Blair Academy and served as head coach for field hockey, basketball and softball.

The C. Vivian Stringer Coaching award, named after the Rutgers head women's basketball coach, has been presented annually by USSA to outstanding coaches in women's sports since 2002 as part of the Academy Awards of Sport Medallion Series, honoring the artist and the athlete. Past winners have been five-time Division II women's basketball national championship coach Amy Ruley, four-time national champion Alabama co-head gymnastics coach Sarah Patterson, five-time national champion UCLA women's track and field coach Jeanette Bolden and 10-time national champion UCLA softball coach Sue Enquist. For more information about this award, please visit www.asama.org.