LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – UT Tyler softball head coach Mike Reed has been officially enshrined into the National Fastpitch Coaches Association Hall of Fame after a ceremony on December 12th in Las Vegas.
 
Reed was inducted alongside Lu Harris-Champer (Georgia), Judy Lawes (Kutztown), and Suzy Willemssen (VA Glory).
 
"I am humbled to share this space with those who have done so much for the game and I have learned so much from," Reed said during his speech. "I never imagined anything like this. Not once did I dream of being in such amazing company. It still has not set in."
 
Reed, who holds the highest winning percentage in NCAA softball history at .840, has a career record of 985-187 and is 880-156 during his time with UT Tyler as the one and only coach in program history. He has three national championships to his name one in 2016, 2024, and 2025. This season he led the Patriots program to back-to-back titles, the first such occurrence in Division II since 1997-1998. In the championship series, the Patriots became the first team to shut out their opponent in both games since the World Series moved to its current format in 2016.
 
Coach Reed and his staff have earned three ATEC/NFCA National Coach Staff of the Year awards, once in 2016 and now back-to-back awards in 2024 and 2025 after securing the program's second and third national championship and UT Tyler's first and second national championship at the Division II level. He and his staff also earned their fifth straight South Central Region Coaching Staff of the Year award in 2025, marking the 11^th time they have earned the regional staff of the year award presented by the NFCA.
 
In his time with the Patriots, the program has earned 10 combined ASC Regular Season and ASC Tournament Championships, 5 straight LSC Regular Season Championships, 1 LSC Tournament Championship, 11 NCAA Division III Tournament appearances, 4 straight NCAA Division II Tournament Appearances, 1 NCAA Division III National Championship (2016), and 2 NCAA Division II National Championships (2024, 2025).
 
Coach Reed was also recognized as a member of the 2024 class of the East Texas Baptist University Hall of Fame. There, he became a four year letterman for the Tigers baseball team before beginning a coaching career with East Texas Baptist. He coached the softball program to three straight American Southwest Conference Championships in his time there before taking the head coaching job at UT Tyler in 2003.
 
"I wanted tonight to be a celebration of the people who made this journey possible through love, support, and sacrifice. Every coach being honored tonight or in the classes before has no doubt worked, sacrificed, and given far more than just what is required of them to achieve what they have, but I think we would all agree: the people in our lives have worked, sacrificed, and given so much and even more in some cases to bring our journey to this moment."