Hillsdale College softball head coach Kyle Gross already was having a 2025 to remember after an excellent spring campaign with the Chargers.

This summer, Gross made another special memory with recognition from the American Collegiate League, who inducted Gross into its Hall of Fame on June 12.

The ACL originally started as the Florida Gulf Coast League in the summer of 2020, offering a competitive summer softball league for collegiate athletes to take part in and get valuable reps for the next school year's campaign. It's steadily grown over the past five seasons, and now has multiple leagues running in the summer throughout the country under the ACL brand. That includes the original Florida league, which remains the largest and most prestigious summer collegiate softball league in America and a destination spot for players from the biggest conferences and top schools in the country.

Gross first got involved in the FGCL in 2022 as a head coach of the Lakewood Ranch Rodeo, guiding the Rodeo to the FGCL championship with the help of future All-Americans Claire Davidson of Duke and Mackenzie Clark of Clemson. He returned as a coach in 2023, guiding his team back to the FGCL playoffs, and has worked the last two years in the league as an umpire. He also has been named to the FGCL Advisory board where he works with a variety of stakeholders to help maintain and grow the league, including legendary Florida State head coach Lonni Alameta.

"I am proud to be honored by the ACL for the time I've spent with this league," Gross said. "I fully support the league and its mission of giving college softball players an opportunity to get better in the summer through high-level competition.

"I've had a great time with this league and I hope to be back in some form with the league in the future."

It's no surprise to see Gross playing a role in helping the ACL take off and become an important part of the collegiate softball ecosystem, as he's helped Hillsdale College make that same type of rise over his tenure.

Gross became the Chargers' all-time winningest coach in 2025, and at 199-136 with the Chargers, he also has the second-best winning percentage in program history. In seven seasons at Hillsdale he's helped the Chargers win three G-MAC Tournament Championships in 2019, 2023 and 2025, as well as a G-MAC regular season championship in 2022 that was the program's first since 1991.

Hillsdale's also made four of the program's six NCAA DII Tournament appearances during his tenure, and made the program's deepest-ever NCAA Tourney run in 2025, winning three games and reaching the final game of their regional at Tiffin.

In 2022, Gross was named the G-MAC Coach of the Year. He's coached the program's first-ever G-MAC and D2CCA Midwest Region Pitcher of the Year in Joni Russell, who also became the program's first-ever consensus first team All-American this past spring.

The Chargers and Gross will return to action this spring, looking to extend a streak of five straight 30-plus win seasons that's the longest in program history.