By Jim O'Hara
 
ROME, Ga. – As a rule, coaches make it a point after a win to give all the credit to those who play the game.

On Monday night, when he is becomes Shorter University's first coach to be inducted into the Rome-Floyd Sports Half Fame, head softball coach Al Thomas is taking that philosophy one step further.

"It's an honor for me because I grew up in this community," said Thomas, a life-long resident of Rome who has found his niche directing the Lady Hawks' program to two national championships in the past four years and has seen the team become one of the top NCAA Division II teams in the nation. "My whole life is this community.

"But truthfully," he quickly added, "I haven't won a single game – the kids have. This is an honor for every player that's come through this program over the last 11 years.

"They're the ones who have done all the work and who have achieved the success," said Thomas, who dug into his own pocket to buy tables so that every member of this year's team can attend the induction ceremony Monday night at Berry College's Krannert Center. "This is their award."

Still, what Thomas has accomplished in his 11 years with Shorter's softball team as an associate head coach and head coach has been remarkable, all of it coming after the West Rome High graduate had already made his mark locally and nationally.

Thomas's love for athletics first led him to the technological connection with sports when he served as an account manager for Avid Technology, working for the NFL, NBA, NHL and NCAA Division I football and basketball teams, as well as being involved in both Summer and Winter Olympic Games.

Before he arrived on "The Hill" at Shorter – his wife Elizabeth and son Austin are graduates – Thomas was affiliated with several Major League Baseball teams in their scouting and player development departments, working with the New York Yankees, the Florida Marlins, the Arizona Diamondbacks and the St. Louis Cardinals in their drives to World Series Championships.

In 2005, however, Thomas traded the baseball diamond for the softball gem and found a home with the Lady Hawks where he quickly helped put the program into the national spotlight.

For the last decade, Shorter has won 42 or more games, including three 50-plus win campaigns; produced 43 All-Americans; 57 All-Conference selections; more than 100 scholar-athletes; and with 387 victories during the span Shorter has the fifth-best winningest percentage among all NCAA programs, trailing only Florida, Alabama, Michigan and Oklahoma.

In the last four years, however, the Lady Hawks have risen to the top of the nation's college softball world during a time in which the program was making the transition as an NAIA program to the NCAA Division II ranks.

In Shorter's final season as an NAIA program in 2012, Thomas led the Lady Hawks to the program's first national championship when Shorter captured the NAIA crown and after making it to the National Christian College World Series title game in 2013 where they finished as the runner-up, saw the team go back and claim the 2014 NCCAA national championship.

Last year, Shorter's first season of being eligible to compete in the Gulf South Conference and NCAA postseason, the Lady Hawks made an immediate statement when they won the 2015 GSC championship, won the NCAA Regional and Super Regional tournaments that gave them a berth in the NCAA Division II Women's College World Series in Oklahoma City, where they posted a third place finish.

Twice Thomas has been named the National Coach of the Year, has been named the Conference Coach of the Year three times, is a four-time Southeast Regional Coach of the Year and two times he has seen his coaching staff – "I've really been blessed with some great assistants," he points out – earn Southeast Region Coaching Staff of the Year honors. 

This season, the Lady Hawks opened the year ranked No. 3 in the Division II national poll and what Thomas is even more proud of is what the Lady Hawks have accomplished off the field in the classroom, where the team leads the nation with a solid 3.87 grade point average.

Thomas becomes the first-ever Shorter coach to be inducted into the local Hall of Fame, which already has in its ranks a pair of former Shorter standouts, Marie Mercer Lewis and Steve Catanzano, and joining Thomas as the Hall's Class of 2016 includes former West Rome High football coach Charles Winslette and Berry College baseball coach David Beasley.

"I never dreamed I'd be coaching softball," Thomas said. "But God had a plan to put me in the place I need to be."