After 21 years as the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) Executive Director, Lacy Lee Baker has announced her resignation, effective August 31, the NFCA announced today.

Baker, a 2014 NFCA Hall of Fame inductee, joined the Association in 1994 as its second full-time executive director, two years before a name change from the National Softball Coaches Association.

“I feel good about where the Association is now, and with an outstanding staff and continued board support, I’m sure the NFCA will continue to grow and succeed,” Baker said.  “I’m very proud of moving the Association to a permanent home in Louisville, Kentucky, and I feel with that stability, the NFCA and the sport can reach even greater heights. It has truly been my honor to serve fastpitch softball coaches all these years and be a small part of the tremendous growth the sport has achieved,” Baker continued.

Under her direction, the Association has expanded greatly both in services provided and membership numbers, going from a group of 1,372 members when she started, to the 3,800-plus members the NFCA serves today. The Association has grown from its founding as a college coaches’ organization to a group now that serves the needs of all coaches in the fastpitch community — from youth to high school to travel ball and college — as well as hundreds of affiliate members.

The annual NFCA National Convention has grown as well during her tenure, with last December’s edition in Las Vegas setting a record for both attendees (1,450) and vendors (130 companies).  She also started the NFCA’s monthly publication, Fastpitch Delivery, and was responsible for the NFCA’s first web site in the 1990s through the redesigned NFCA.org that launched this summer.

With the Board of Directors, she helped establish the Association’s written purpose: “To support fastpitch softball coaches in their quest for excellence, while uniting together to advance the sport we love,” and had been working at the time of her decision with the NFCA Board of Directors to spell out the Association’s vision for the future.

“Lacy Lee’s service and dedication to the NFCA has been unparalleled as she has invested her heart and soul into this organization for over two decades,” NFCA Board of Directors President Rhonda Revelle said.

“She has been the driving force of positioning the NFCA where is stands today. Myself, and the NFCA Board of Directors are grateful and appreciative of Lacy Lee’s contributions to ‘advancing the sport we all love,’ and we wish her nothing but the very best in the next chapter of her life.”

Baker’s first job in sports was in 1978 as an assistant sports information director at San Diego State. In 1980, she became Director of Publications at Stanford University and she joined the staff of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee in 1983 as the project manager and editor of Olympic Record, the daily newspaper for the 1984 Olympic Games.

In 1985, she joined the staff at the NCAA, working first in publications, before moving on to assistant and associate director of championship positions, where she worked with the NCAA’s three softball championships and as the liaison to the National Softball Coaches Association.

Her husband, Jay Miller, a 2008 NFCA Hall of Fame inductee, is the pitching coach at the University of Louisville and their daughter, Nikki Miller, is an assistant coach at Wittenberg University.