Yvette Girouard

Retired Head Coach - LSU / Louisiana-Lafayette
Emeriti Representative (2016-17)

A pioneer of the game and one of the most successful coaches in NCAA Division I college softball history, Yvette Girouard retired from Louisiana State University at the end of the 2011 season with a 1,285-421-1 career record.

The 2005 NFCA Hall of Fame inductee left coaching with 30 consecutive winning seasons, nine conference championships and 10 national top 10 finishes, while leading teams to NCAA regionals 20 times and the Women’s College World Series (WCWS) five times. She became just the third coach in NCAA history to steer two programs to the WCWS when she guided LSU during the 2001 and 2004 seasons and the University of Southwestern Louisiana (now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette) to a trio of WCWS appearances in the 1990's. Her highest finishes were third place in the 1993, 2001 and 2004 national championships.

In her two decades as the UL-Lafayette head coach (1981 to 2000), Girouard built the team from the ground floor with no scholarships and a $3,000 budget to one of the nation's perennial powers. The Cajuns totaled 10 NCAA regional berths and three WCWS trips. With a .815 winning percentage, her teams posted the third-best winning percentage nationally in the 1990's behind only Arizona and UCLA.

At LSU, Girouard's legacy continued to grow as she compiled a 526-171-1 record from 2001 through 2011 for a .754 winning percentage in the ever-improving SEC.

Since her retirement, she has received numerous accolades, including a 2015 induction into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. Girouard was presented resolution by the Louisiana State legislature for her “extraordinary coaching career” and an award from the Allstate Sugar Bowl and the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame as Louisiana’s Most Outstanding College Coach.