Four Coaches to Join NFCA Hall of Fame on Friday

A quartet of coaches, including two active program leaders, will be officially inducted into the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) Hall of Fame on Friday night.

Harvard head coach Jenny Allard; recently-retired Southern Illinois head coach Kerri Blaylock; former SIU-Edwardsville head coach Sandy Montgomery; and Sheldon High School coach Mary Jo Truesdale will be enshrined during the annual Hall of Fame banquet at the NFCA Convention. The 2022 convention and induction are being held in San Antonio, Texas.

Allard and Truesdale are actively in their coaching roles, while Blaylock retired from SIU and coaching after the 2022 season. Montgomery retired from SIUE after the 2018 campaign.

Now entering her 28th season at Harvard, Allard led the Crimson to the NCAA tournament via an Ivy League championship in just her fourth year as head coach. Her tenure has included seven NCAA tournament appearances, eight Ivy League titles, and more than 650 wins. The Crimson won back-to-back conference titles in 2018 and 2019 and posted a winning record in fourteen of their last sixteen full seasons of play.

Blaylock spent the better part of twenty-three years leading the Southern Illinois program, earning herself the titles of winningest coach in both program and athletic department history. She led the Salukis to eight NCAA tournament berths, including an at-large selection in 2019. The Salukis also reached the NCAA tournament in five straight seasons, from 2003-07, the only program in Missouri Valley conference history to accomplish the quintuple-back-to-back feat. She owns more than 750 career wins.

In 2007, Montgomery shepherded SIUE to a Division 2 national championship, the first title in program history. Through her thirty years leading the program, Montgomery notched more than 1,000 wins; led the Cougars to a dozen NCAA tournament appearances; and won six conference titles. She also guided the program through the transition from Division 2 into Division 1; in their first year following the transition, the Cougars won 40 games and would go on to win the Ohio Valley conference championship and reach the NCAA tournament in just their sixth year as a D1 program.

More than four decades into her high school coaching career, Truesdale is a mainstay on the high school softball scene in the state of California. She has spent the last 26 years as the coach at Sheldon High School in Sacramento and was named National Coach of the Year in 2020. She started the Sheldon program in 1997 and is the only coach the squad has ever known. She is a 10-time league Coach of the Year and also owns five Sacramento Metro Area Coach of the Year honors.

Following the four coaches’ induction, the NFCA Hall of Fame roster will stand at 92 members.