An Impressive Feat
On March 17, the Nebraska Wesleyan men’s basketball team won the program’s first ever national championship with a 78-72 victory over Wisconsin-Oshkosh in the NCAA III Men's Basketball National Championship game. It is now three months later, and yes, we’re still talking about it.
An unranked, unnoticed underdog team finding victory on the national stage is the stuff of books and films. For that story to play out in front of our eyes understandably brought excitement to NWU and Lincoln.
But the team’s victory is even more impressive than the coverage showed. The last time a D-III team won the men’s basketball national championship with only one full-time coach and no full-time assistants was when Williams College did it in 2003.
Head Coach Dale Wellman, earlier named National Head Coach of the Year, brought the men’s basketball team to the championships with a staff of only part-time assistant coaches. All of our competitors in the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference have at least one full-time assistant; Central College has two.
This coaching gap extends to all sports. NWU has 13 full-time coaches for our 21 sports, compared to Simpson, the next closest, with 19, and Central College at the top with 35.
This has been a persistent challenge that was present even before we joined the IIAC. That is why athletic coaching was made a fundraising priority when we launched Bold Designs: The Campaign for Nebraska Wesleyan University.
The goal is to create endowed funds to support our coaches and add more full-time coaching positions across all sports, including a strength and conditioning coaching position to work with all student-athletes.
An example of the success of endowed coaching funds can be seen in football. We have raised over $200,000 from three endowed coaching funds. Those combined funds are now spinning off around $8,000 a year. For the last two years, that draw has supported Caleb Armstrong (’14), our linebackers coach and special teams coordinator.
“These gifts allow [Caleb] to increase his recruiting efforts, which has been invaluable to our team,” said Head Football Coach Brian Keller. “I’m confident we can continue to build upon this success with Bold Designs, in football and across all sports.”
We will use this model to grow and support our coaching staff. From better mentoring to stronger recruiting, hiring more coaches will greatly impact the future of NWU Athletics and the student experience.
We hope it will even set us up for more national championship titles and add more trophies to our trophy case. That is, once we get the basketball championship trophy back from Coach Wellman’s office.