Michele Hawkins enters her second year as an assistant coach.
She made an immediate impact in her first year with the Tigers working with their pitchers. As a team, Towson won a program record 42 victories and participated in the National Invitational Softball Championship (NISC), its first postseason appearance in school history.
Under her guidance, pitcher Megan Dejter won a single season program record 24 games and earned All-Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) accolades. Dejter also lowered her earned run average by more than a run from her junior to senior season. As a pitching staff, Towson had nine shutouts and had three different pitchers carry a no-hit bid into the sixth inning.
Hawkins arrived to Towson from Coastal Carolina where she served as the director of operations.
Hawkins brings many years of experience to the Tigers on and off the softball field. Prior to joining Coastal Carolina, Hawkins spent several years focusing her attention on working with student-athletes who have dreams of playing college softball. Hawkins refined a college bound athlete program, based out of a facility in her home town of San Diego and then nationally for a large travel club, where she worked with individual softball athletes and their families to help them find the perfect fit for their future college academic and athletic career.
Hawkins is familiar with the CAA. In 2010, she joined the coaching staff of the University of Delaware as an assistant coach. Delaware finished in the top three of the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) both years that Hawkins was on staff. UD pitchers Chenxi Jiao, Amanda Stacevicz, and Hannah Rust all garnered conference accolades.
Prior to her time at UD, Hawkins was on the coaching staff as an assistant coach at Penn State from 2008-2010, coaching stand-out pitchers Jackie Hill and Lisa Akamine to All-Big Ten accolades.
Hawkins coached at Emory University in 2006. In her year with the Eagles, she was part of the NFCA Atlantic Region Coaching Staff of the Year, and helped the team to a fifth place finish in the NCAA Division III World Series. In addition, two of her pitchers went on to earn selection to the All-Atlantic Region team.
Hawkins' collegiate career was spent at Northwestern (1990-1994) where she earned All-Midwest Region twice and was an All-Big Ten selection. In addition, she appears multiple times throughout the Northwestern record book, most notably for wins and shutouts. She also contributed five no-hitters in her time as a Wildcat, three of the five were perfect games. During her time at Northwestern, Hawkins also earned ASA All-American accolades with her ASA Women’s Major Team, Michigan Cruise. As a result, she was invited by the US Olympic Committee to the 1993 Olympic Festival.
After graduating from Northwestern, Hawkins joined the Michigan State staff as the pitching coach from 1994-97. Stacey Smith was her star hurler earning recognition on All-Big Ten and All-Great Lakes Region teams.
From there, Hawkins went back to Chicago, this time as the head coach at the University of Chicago. In her three years she became the winningest coach in Maroons history and still has the highest winning percentage of .648. In addition, she had a Rhodes Scholar in Erin Bohula in 1999.
Following her coaching career at Chicago, Hawkins worked for the International Softball Federation. She traveled overseas working with national teams and developing the sport of softball throughout Europe and the Caribbean.
Hawkins played professionally in both Europe, with the Italian Series “A” program out of Marina di Massa (’96), and then in the US with the WPSL and WPF’s Georgia Pride (`98) and the Durham Dragons (`99). She was named an All-Star both seasons and was the WPF record holder for strikeouts in a game with 17.
Another highlight of her post-collegiate career was when she went on to play in the national tournament for the women's major division of the ASA. Her team placed third in the country while she finished the tournament with a perfect ERA of 0.00. For her efforts, she was named an ASA First Team All-American.
Hawkins earned her Bachelor of Science Degree in Education and Social Policy from Northwestern in 1994 and her Master of Arts in Community and Agency Counseling from Michigan State in 1999.
