Director of Athletics Clark Yeager has called upon Juli Fulks to revitalize the women's softball program at Lewis and Clark. Fulks will add this duty to her role as Head Women's Basketball Coach for the Pioneers and hopes to bring the same kind of improvement to the diamond she was able to bring to the court on Palatine Hill. The department will conduct a search immediately for a full-time assistant softball coach to help Fulks, particularly with off-season conditioning and recruiting. This will be the first full-time assistant coach for any sport other than football in recent years at L&C.

Fulks has a strong background in softball most recently as the Head Assistant Softball Coach at Defiance College in Defiance, Ohio. That team jumped from finishing 5th in the conference in 2003 to first place in 2004 and advanced to the 2004 NCAA regional tournament. The 2004 Defiance team had three All-Conference players and two players named to the NCAA All-Region team. In addition to the conference championship and NCAA qualifier, the 2004 team was named an Academic All-American team by the NFCA.

As the L&C Head Basketball Coach, Fulks created a turnaround that had her squad ranked as one of the 20 most-improved teams in NCAA III Women’s Basketball in her second season at the helm of the Pioneers. She took a team with one Conference win in 2004-05 to finishing third in the Northwest Conference last season.

Yeager made it clear how much he appreciates Juli for taking on this added responsibility and believes it is absolutely the best possible opportunity for the program and involved student-athletes to have the quality program they and the College desire. "Juli is an energetic and extremely talented young coach that clearly enjoys students and competing at a high level. We will provide her all the support possible to be successful," stated Yeager.

For the last three seasons the LC softball team has had a record of 10-99 and finished in 9th place in the NWC last season. Fulks will have just a small number of returners and her first challenge will be to recruit student-athletes to represent the College this spring. The next most important challenge will be to bring in a strong freshman class in the fall of 2008.

“I am truly looking forward to this opportunity to help re-establish the softball program,” said Fulks. “As an institution, we are extremely committed to our athletes having a competitive athletic experience while receiving a first-class education. With the administration's complete support, I am excited about building a foundation with this year's team. With our current players plus a commitment to recruiting talented student-athletes, I believe we can attain a new level of success on the field.”