Former Brigham Young University baseball player and coach Gary Pullins will be inducted into the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame on Saturday.
"It is about the highest honor to come to a coach, and is well-deserved by Gary," said Glen Tuckett, who coached Pullins at BYU and nominated him for the honor. "There is not a more willing inductee that I can remember. He is a wonderful young man and did a great job."
Pullins is one of five who will be inducted at the 2004 ABCA Hall of Fame/Coach of the Year Banquet at the national convention in San Antonio, Texas.
"Although he was an excellent player and an excellent coach, he is a better person," Tuckett said. "It was just a matter of time before he was inducted. He had all the credentials to be a hall of famer."
Pullins, in his fifth year as assistant athletic director at BYU and director of the Varsity Club, retired from coaching after the 1999 season. He compiled a 913-462-6 (.663) record in his 23 seasons as the Cougars head coach. His 913 victories ranks 30th in all-time victories by NCAA baseball coaches.
Nine times the former ABCA president (1998) led the Cougars to the NCAA Regional Tournament, and in 1983, Pullins guided the team to BYU's only No. 1 national ranking. Under his helm, the Cougars won 15 Western Athletic Conference division titles and six championships. He was the WAC Coach of the Year in 1988, 1989 and 1993. Pullins was selected 1985 Diamond Baseball National Coach of the Year.
Among the players he has coached are former major league all stars Wally Joyner, Rick Aguilera , Cory Snyder and current 2003 World Series Champion Florida Marlins reserve Brian Banks.
The 60-year-old native of Glendale, Ariz., played for Tuckett, a 1979 ABCA Hall of Famer, at BYU in 1967 and '68. He started at second base two years and helped the Cougars get to the 1968 College World Series.
Pullins spent five years in the Los Angeles Dodgers organization as a player and coach, working with Latin American players. After coaching the BYU junior varsity team for a year, he pioneered the baseball program beginning in 1971 as coach and athletic director at what is now Utah Valley State College in Orem.
After spending the 1976 season as an assistant at Arizona State University, Tuckett selected Pullins to replace him as BYU's seventh head coach. Tuckett, a Lefty Gomez award winner in 1990, left coaching to become the Cougars' athletic director.
Pullins earned a bachelor's degree in Spanish at BYU in 1969 and received a master's degree in physical education/health science in 1975.
His wife, Kathy, now serves as the associate dean at the J. Reuben Clark Law School. Kathy is originally from El Paso, Texas.
They are parents of four sons: Travis, Micah, Brandt and Taylor.
Jeff Albies (William Patterson University, N.J.), Billy Bock (Pine Bluff High School, Ark.), Chuck Hartman (Virginia Tech) and Tom O'Connell (Princeton University, N.J.) are the other four who will also be inducted into the Hall of Fame on Saturday.
The Louisville Slugger Museum in Louisville, Ky., houses the ABCA Coaches Hall of Fame.