For area sports fans, looking up the scores of a West Virginia Wesleyan softball game and seeing that the Bobcats won is simply a way of life.

If those sports fans took a quick glance at the West Virginia Wesleyan softball scores from Thursday afternoon’s home doubleheader with Ohio Valley, it was the same old story – two games and two more wins for the Bobcats, 7-3 and 9-0 to be exact. But these two wins were far from just your typical regular-season victories.

These two triumphs were very special for head coach Steve Warner, as they were the 499th and 500th wins of his coaching career. “It is a great feeling to reach 500 wins,” remarked Warner. “There has been a lot of hard work that has gone into each and every victory. I could have never accomplished this without some of the tremendous athletes that have passed through these dugouts. I give them all the credit, because over this span, I could not have asked for better athletes, both on and of the field.”

Warner is just Wesleyan’s third head coach of the program which was founded in 1987. He has turned the softball team into one of the premier programs on the East Coast. In his 14th season as head coach of the Bobcats, he has compiled a 500-179-1 record. His teams have won 11 West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WVIAC) championships, appeared in eight regional tournaments, and he has been named the WVIAC ‘Coach of the Year’ on nine different occasions.

His 500th win places him 26th on the NCAA Division II All-Time softball coaching victories list and his .742 winning percentage places him 10th all-time among NCAA Division II softball coaches.

Warner has spent his entire collegiate coaching career at Wesleyan. He began his tenure at Wesleyan at the age of 23 as an assistant coach under Mike Hinkle. After serving two years as an assistant coach, he was named co-head coach with Hinkle in 1993. He assumed full responsibilities of the team as head coach the following year.
“I never really dreamed that I would win 500 games when I first took this job,” he said. “It is a special moment for me and it was nice that it could occur here in front of our fans and on our field.”

He resides in Buckhannon with his wife Terry and their two children, Thomas (8) and Jonathan (4).