Friday Features: UAH Coach Les Stuedeman lifts Chargers to softball greatness
By Mike Perrin
Les Stuedeman became the first softball coach at the University of
Alabama in Huntsville in 1995. In the two decades since, most would say Stuedeman "is" UAH softball.
Stuedeman recorded her 900th victory earlier this season just months after she became the first Alabamian and second person with Alabama ties (University of Alabama coach Patrick Murphy being the first) to be inducted into the National Fastpitch Coaches Association Hall of Fame. None of her Chargers teams has suffered a losing season. UAH has averaged more than 47 wins a year under the Vestavia Hills, Ala., native. Her Chargers have earned a berth in all 19 Gulf South Conference tournaments, making the title game 12 times, winning eight crowns and never finishing outside the semifinals.
Stuedeman has been named the league’s coach of the year nine times. UAH has the GSC’s best tournament record (64-24), four South Region championships, appeared in the NCAA tournament 17 times and currently riding a 12-season streak and twice finished as Division II runners-up. Headed into this weekend’s GSC series at West Florida, eighth-ranked UAH is 13-5 – 8-2 in the league – and Stuedeman’s career record is 907-283-1.
The coach’s induction into the NFCA Hall of Fame isn’t her first time to receive such an honor. She is also in the Vestavia Hills High School Hall of Fame and the Huntingdon College Hall of Fame. What was it like to receive the national honor?
“It was surreal,” Stuedeman said. “Just so, so, so humbling. Honestly, I still can’t believe it. It was an awesome opportunity to reflect and reconnect with the Chargers of the last 20 years. I have been so blessed and lucky. I think the high point for me was being able to thank the kids, UAH and my family for the opportunity to do what I love every day.”
Going to work every day – and not just during the bitter cold and rainy first few weekends that always seem to mark the beginning of softball season – is part of what makes Stuedeman such a success story. Typically, she deflects much of the credit to people who do deserve to share the praise.
“I have had the great fortune of coaching some great players,” she said. “They have gotten every hit, made every catch and pitched every strike. I have worked with three of the very, very, very best teachers in the game as assistants. We have had incredible leadership in our athletic department. The success of our softball program isn’t about one person, it’s about all of the people who have contributed to it.
“We still fund-raise about $80,000 per year so we can fund our program. We could not do it without the community and their generous support. I would also say that I have been inspired and really driven by our competition: UWF, Valdosta State and our cross-state rivals in West Alabama and North Alabama. We have to be able to compete with them and in the summer when it’s hot and I am ready to leave the ballpark, I remind myself that we have to compete with those folks and it drives me to stay later and, yes, work harder.
“I signed one of my best and most successful classes the summer Thomas Macera got the job at VSU because I knew what he was going to do with that program. ‘Rising tides lift all boats.’”
When Stuedeman took the UAH job, softball in Alabama high schools was in only its second season of fastpitch play. She didn’t see creating a new program as a burden too difficult to tackle. “UAH gave me a chance,” she said. “I wanted to coach in college and fortunately for me the stars lined up. It’s close to my family in Birmingham. I never saw one obstacle when I took this job.
“When I gave my Hall of Fame speech, I said this: ‘UAH is a research university with an average ACT score of 26.7, our largest major is Engineering, our flagship sport is hockey. They said they would give me three scholarships, no budget and no facilities and I never saw one roadblock to success. I’m not sure I even blinked before I said yes.’ I had a dream and UAH gave me the opportunity and continues to give me the opportunity to live that dream.”
In 20 years, the coach has obviously seen many changes in the game and the Gulf South Conference. “The biggest change has to be the competitiveness of the league from top to bottom,” Stuedeman said. “In 2014 we only had three teams in the conference with losing records. It’s remarkable and if you look across the board at all the sports in our conference I am not sure we are that competitive in any other sport. Nationally we have been highly competitive and I think it’s harder to win our regular season title than it is to win a regional or national tournament. Valdosta set the bar when they won the national championship (in 2012), and for me it’s both a source of pride and envy.”
At least a couple of the changes Stuedeman has seen don’t exactly make her happy.
“I am not a fan of the regionalization (playoff) model,” she said. “I think it is part of the reason D2 is ‘looked down upon’ in some ways. We don’t send our best teams to compete for championships. Why should anyone take D2 seriously if we don’t send our best to the highest level of competition? So, if I had a magic wand for a day, I would change how national tournaments are seeded.
“Secondly, I would change the GSC Tournament back to eight teams and back to a neutral site. It is an absolute shame that we are cutting 40 opportunities for student-athletes in softball. If our No. 1 priority is about the student-athlete experience, we need to reconsider this decision. Softball is a partial scholarship sport. Most GSC baseball and softball athletes are paying more to go to their universities than they are getting in scholarship. To reduce their opportunities to participate in a championship is a real disservice and, to me, a step backward for softball. I hope the SAAC groups and student-athletes will join me in sending that message upward.”
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