NEW ORLEANS — NFCA First Vice President and Hall of Fame Committee Chair Lisa Navas announced the 2017 NFCA Hall of Fame induction class at the conclusion of this year’s Hall of Fame Banquet on Dec. 9 during the NFCA National Convention at the New Orleans Marriott.

The quartet of inductees includes Ashland University head coach Sheilah Gulas, OC Batbusters coach Gary Haning, Carson-Newman University head coach Vickee Kazee-Hollifield and retired University of Connecticut head coach Karen Mullins. Both Haning and Mullins were elected in the Pioneer category, which recognizes an NFCA member who has contributed above and beyond to the sport of fastpitch softball through service, leadership, coaching and/or participation.
They will be enshrined on Dec. 8, 2017, during the NFCA National Convention in Las Vegas.

Gulas, who is also Ashland’s assistant athletic director and senior woman administrator, is heading into her 21st season as the Eagles’ head coach and 31st overall as a collegiate head coach. She needs just one victory to reach 900 for her career and has won nearly 66 percent of her games (899-464-1). Gulas needs only seven wins to reach 700 at Ashland (693-342-1).
She has compiled a winning record in all 20 of her seasons at Ashland, making 12 NCAA Division II tournaments and collecting five Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) titles and three conference Coach of the Year awards. In 1998, her second season, Gulas guided Ashland to a school-record 53 wins and a No. 3 national ranking. The Eagles have collected 40 wins five times during her tenure.
“It definitely took my breath away,” Gulas said of the honor in a statement released by her school. “I felt really weak when I stood up (at the Hall of Fame Banquet) after they announced the whole thing. It was overwhelming.”

Haning helped build the Batbusters into one of the most well-known and successful travel ball organizations in the nation, with more than 30 national championships. His team rosters have been a who’s who of the top names in softball.
Four-time All-American and four-time Olympic medalist Laura Berg and her twin sister Randi, delivered the Batbusters’ first 18-and-under national title in 1992 on a loaded team that also featured former UCLA standouts Nicole (Odom) Reis and Leah Poulson, former Arizona stars Leah Braatz and Andrea Doty, and Cal-Berkeley star Gillian Boxx. Fellow Olympic star and Women’s College World Series champion Jennie Finch, won a 1997 national crown and had 1998 runner-up finish with the Batbusters as a teammate of her future University of Arizona teammate Toni Mascarenas.
Haning also co-founded the hugely-successful Premier Girls Fastpitch with Dan Hay.

Kazee-Hollifield is already a member of the Carson-Newman and South Atlantic Conference (SAC) Halls of Fame after leading the school to 23 SAC crowns, 12 NCAA berths — including seven straight from 2004-11 — and winning 11 conference Coach of the Year honors. She has 1,092 career victories, which ranks 18th among all divisions and her .742 winning percentage ranks sixth among active Division II coaches and first among Division II coaches who have coached at least 25 seasons.
In addition to her softball prowess, Kazee-Hollifield was a standout basketball player, leading the state of Tennessee in scoring her senior year of high school and later earning selection to the Carson-Newman “Team of the Century” in 1995, still ranking among the school statistical leaders. She also is a former head volleyball coach at Carson-Newman, compiling a 59-21 record over her three seasons, and an assistant for the basketball program, before concentrating solely on the softball program and serving as the school’s senior woman administrator.

Mullins, who retired in 2014, went 862-636-5 over 31 seasons leading her alma mater. UConn went to eight NCAA tournaments on her watch, and advanced to the Women’s College World Series in 1993, when the Huskies won a school-record 45 games and finished a run of five straight NCAA appearances.
During her tenure, UConn captured seven Big East tournament titles and four regular-season crowns. Mullins is a former player for both the Huskies’ softball and basketball teams, as well as a former nationally-recognized Major League Fastpitch Softball infielder and the co-founder of the Single-A Major Waterford (Conn.) Mariners softball team.