Former Francis Marion University softball player and coach
Rendy Yates and former Patriot track and field and
cross country athlete Mitch Powell were inducted
into the FMU Athletic Hall of Fame on Feb. 6, 1999.
Yates, a native of Lake City, S.C., was a
three-time NAIA All-American on the softball diamond. She
lettered in softball in 1984, 1985, 1987, and 1988, and earned the
B.S. degree in elementary education in 1988. She is a first
grade teacher at Brockington Elementary School in Timmonsville,
where she has taught for the past eight years. Prior to that,
she taught for two years at East Clarendon Middle School.
During her playing career, she helped lead the Patriots to a
four-year mark of 131-49 and two trips to the NAIA World Series
(1987 and 1988). She ended her career with a .365 batting
average and nearly 100 runs batted in. She was a three-time
NAIA District Six All-District selection and earned first-team
All-America honors as a senior and second-team All-America honors
in 1987 and 1985.
As a junior, she set a NAIA World Series record for most at bats
(30) as Francis Marion reached the national championship game (a
1-0 lost to Kearney State College) with a 42-4 record. That
same year, she led the nation in stolen base percentage (22-22) and
tied for 11th in triples per game.
Following her playing days, she returned as an assistant coach
with the 1995 squad. As the interim head coach in 1996, Yates
led the Patriots to a 27-23 record and a fourth-place finish during
the Peach Belt Athletic Conference regular season.
