Feb. 27, 2008

BOCA RATON, FL - Joan Joyce, Florida Atlantic University's head softball coach, will be inducted into the Palm Beach County Sports Hall of Fame, on Sunday, March 9 at the Palm Beach County Convention Center, 650 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach.

Joyce is the only coach in the history of FAU softball and has never suffered a losing season in the program's 13 seasons. More impressively, Joyce has guided FAU softball to nine Atlantic Sun Conference Championships, including eight-consecutive titles, and set a league record for total titles by a sport. The Owls transitioned into the Sun Belt Conference in 2007 and set a tone by capturing the program's first SBC title.

Joyce molded pitcher Nikki Myers into a two-time All-American and saw the senior vie for both the nation's top player honor and for a spot on the U.S. Olympic team. She has coached seven conference players/pitchers of the year, 66 all-conference selections and has earned "Coach of the Year" honors six times. FAU averages nearly 49 victories a season under Joyce's direction.

Joyce came to FAU after a legendary softball career which garnered the Connecticut native All-America honors 15 times, including a National Tournament batting title (.467). She tallied a career pitching record of 753-42. Included in those totals are 150 no-hit, no-run games, and 50 perfect games. She also is credited with striking out both Ted Williams and Hank Aaron.

Joyce was also a member of the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) for 19 years. Her best round was a 66, which did not include the round which she set a Guinness Book World Record for fewest putts in a round at 17. She also has played professional volleyball, basketball and was a participant in the famed "Super Stars" television show on ABC and hosted by Howard Cosell in the mid-1970s.

The Palm Beach County Sports Hall of Fame induction is the ninth such honor for Joyce. She also has been enshrined into the Connecticut Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame, the Han O'Donnell Hall of Fame, the Fairfield County Sports Hall of Fame, the International Softball Federation Hall of Fame, The National Amateur Softball Hall of Fame, the Greater Waterbury Hall of Fame, and is just one of a handful of Americans who have been inducted into the International Women's Sports Hall of Fame. In 1976 she was a runner-up for the Women's Sports Magazine Athlete of the Year.

While Joyce is being inducted into the hall, FAU Football Head Coach Howard Schnellenberger has been nominated for the amateur coach of the year and sophomore quarterback Rusty Smith has been nominated as the amateur athlete of the year.

Schnellenberger, like Joyce, has built the FAU football program from scratch. The legendary coach gathered the knowledge gained from greats like Paul "Bear" Bryant, Blanton Collier, George Allen, and Don Shula to take both University of Miami and the University of Louisville from obscurity to national prominence. With a blueprint for success etched in his daily schedule, Schnellenberger is following the same course with the Owls. Since the program's inception, FAU eclipsed milestones at a rapid pace. The latest accomplishment was the 2007 Sun Belt Conference Championship and an invitation to the New Orleans Bowl, becoming not only the fastest start-up program to receive an invitation, but the youngest to capture a bowl win.

Schnellenberger has had one common denominator with every program and that is a championship caliber quarterback. He has recruited and coached the likes of Joe Namath, Jim Kelly, Bernie Kosar, Vinny Testaverde, Browning Nagel and Jeff Brohm.

His latest student of the game is quarterback Rusty Smith. Smith turned his sophomore season into one for the record books. The Jacksonville native was named the 2007 Sun Belt Player of the Year, the New Orleans Bowl MVP, was a four-time Sun Belt Conference Player of the Week, and the USA Today National Offensive Player of the Week. Smith was 281-for-479 for 3,688 yards. He averaged 283.7 yards per game and threw for 32 touchdowns. His quarterback efficiency was 141.63.

Smith set FAU records for single-game pass attempts (54), season pass attempts (479), completions in a game (35), completions in a season (281), passing yards in a game (463), passing yards in a season (3,688), average passing yards per game (283.7), and touchdowns in a game (five twice). Smith also made FAU history as the first quarterback to guide the team to its first bowl game and first bowl victory. Notably, for the Owls to capture the 2007 Sun Belt Championship and to reach the New Orleans Bowl, Smith and FAU had to defeat Troy University and its quarterback Omar Haugabook, who garnered the 2007 Palm Beach County Sport Hall of Fame Amateur honor. Smith followed up his 291-yard and two touchdowns Troy performance with a New Orleans Bowl record five touchdowns and 336 yards against Memphis University.

Joan Joyce and the Owls' softball team are just one month into its 2008 campaign. The football team will return to the practice field at the end of March and will face the University of Texas on Saturday, August 30.

For more information, visit www.fausports.com.