Last year, at about this time, Jan Hutchinson started her 20th season as Bloomsburg University head softball coach. It was a season which would bring her unfamiliar notoriety and national attention.
On April 20, 1997, Hutchinson, also Bloomsburg's field hockey coach, earned her 1,000th career coaching victory when her team swept a twin bill from Dowling College. She became the first women's coach (and first female coach) to reach 1,000 collegiate wins. And she hadn't even been aware that the milestone was approaching.
"I've never just sat around and counted wins," she said. "That's not me. I wasn't even aware of it and didn't think it was a big deal until Scott (Leightman, Bloomsburg Sports Information Director,) made me aware of it."
"Sure, it's nice to be the first women's coach to reach 1,000 - it's a nice benchmark in my career." She added, "but all this probably means is that I'm getting old."
Despite Hutchinson's modesty, the milestone means much more than that - it means Hutchinson has been incredibly successful at Bloomsburg and has achieved her goal of putting together a program that brings credit to the college and provides its players with the opportunity to compete on a competitive team. Hutchinson completed the 1997 season with a 677-141 softball record, an average of over 30 victories per season. It was the 18th consecutive winning season and the 16th consecutive playoff appearance for the softball team. There have been only two seasons since 1982 in which the Huskies have not had at least one All-American.
Hutchinson's field hockey team has fared at least as well as her softball team. Bloomsburg has captured seven national championship titles, including the past two consecutive crowns. Hutchinson's field hockey record is 349-52-20 after finishing the 1997 season with the Huskies' first 20-win season since 1993, when the team went undefeated.
Going into the 1998 softball season, Hutchinson's combined record stands at 1,026-193-20. Her winning percentage is .836, better than Dean Smith's at North Carolina (.775) and Joe Paterno's at Penn State (.779), who are considered by many to set the standard for excellence in their respective collegiate sports. She has had only two losing seasons in either sport, her first two softball campaigns in 1978 and 1979, when Bloomsburg went 4-7 and 6-11, respectively. Her softball team has won at least 30 games per season since 1984, and her field hockey team hasn't won fewer than 15 matches in a year since 1980. Her win totals in each sport are Division II all-time records.
And all of her victories have come with the quiet encouragement which marks her coaching style.
"She doesn't yell, ever," said Hutchinson's assistant softball coach, Susan Kocher, ""Certainly, Jan is a perfectionist. But the way she demands perfection isn't in the typical screaming way other coaches do."
"I just don't want the kids out there in fear of making a mistake," Hutchinson explained. "I want them to enjoy the game. And I think they'll play better if they still love playing, if they're still having fun. I think you get better results from being positive."
And part of being positive and making sports fun is sharing the glory. "It was typical that when Coach Hutchinson was honored for winning 1,000, she dedicated it to all the players," said Nicky Yanora, a member of Bloomsburg's softball team. "Instead of taking the credit herself, she passed it all back to the players and said without them, the wins wouldn't have been possible."
Hutchinson said that winning 1,000 games ranks with winning both the softball and field hockey national championships in the same school year, in 1981-82, as her top career highlights.
However, Hutchinson had always wanted to have more career highlights come from her playing career. But that dream all but ended the summer after her freshman year at Newton (N.J.) High School, when she slipped off a diving board, fell 16 feet to the pool deck and broke the femur bone of her left leg. She spent four months in traction and three months in a body cast. She developed an infection, and complications forced her to miss nearly her entire sophomore year.
"The doctors pretty much told me that I would probably never walk right and that I would never play sports again," Hutchinson said.
Then Hutchinson decided to prove the doctors wrong. For her last two years of high school, she played through the pain in basketball, field hockey, softball and track. The leg healed improperly, and frequent knee dislocations forced into a cycle of competition, injury and therapy. She even tried to continue her athletic career into college at East Stroudsburg University (then East Stroudsburg State College), but during the first week of field hockey practice, she dislocated the knee again and halted the cycle of pain.
"That's what began my coaching career," she said of the accident. "I spent a lot of time sitting, watching and observing. Because I couldn't compete myself, I wanted to be around athletics more than ever."
Hutchinson said she intends to keep coach both sports at Bloomsburg for several more years.
"As long as it's fun to coach, I'll continue,"" she said. "I like both sports about the same amount. Winning in either never gets old. When I don't enjoy it anymore, I'll stop. Right now, I still enjoy it very much."