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Transitions at the Top
Transitions at the Top
In 1998, Bob Becker announced that he would retire following 18 years as athletic director. The following decade was one of fluidity atop the Athletic Department.
The administration promoted head football coach Jerry Kill to athletic director in June 1998 in advance of Becker’s retirement.4 As a coach, Kill emphasized that his students perform well in the classroom. As an administrator, he brought athletics and the academic departments together to monitor attendance and achievement. He made certain that athletes attended class and urged them to sit in the front row. Kill also was adept at the little things. He brought people in the department together, for example, by remembering their birthdays. Within months, however, Kill confided to many of those close to him that the pressures of administration combined with the time necessary to build a successful Division II football program were proving too much for him. Within a year of his appointment, Kill resigned as athletic director and head football coach, citing a need to return home to Kansas to assist with an ailing parent.5 He later returned to the gridiron as head coach at Emporia State University, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Northern Illinois University and, in 2010, the Big Ten’s University of Minnesota. Gilbert “Griz” Zimmermann replaced Kill in 2000. A former football player at the University of Michigan, Zimmermann came to SVSU after having served as assistant athletic director at Southern Methodist University since 1993. His background was in strength and conditioning. While at SMU, Zimmermann assisted with the rebuilding of a program devastated by the 1987-1988 “death penalty.” The NCAA had suspended the football program for much of two seasons as punishment for massive rules violations that included the payment of players. Zimmermann stayed at SVSU for three years, leaving in 2003 to take the same position at Gannon University in Pennsylvania.
Golf coach Joe Vogl replaced Zimmermann on an interim basis in 2003 before administrators named him athletic director in May 2004. A former golfer at SVSU, Vogl became the second golf coach to serve as athletic director at SVSU, and as a coach he was just as successful as his mentor Becker. He led the golf team to GLIAC titles in 1996 and 1998, and took them to national tournament appearances in 1997 and 1998. Three times he was named the GLIAC “Coach of the Year” — in 1993, 1996 and 1998. Just as his predecessor, Vogl left after three years. He resigned in June 2006 to return to coaching and assume the new position of director of annual giving in the SVSU Foundation.6
Despite the turnover atop the department, many of the Cardinal teams enjoyed success during this era. The men’s and women’s track and field teams from 1999-2005 finished in the upper third of the GLIAC nearly every year. Perhaps the best season for both indoor track teams was 2003, when the men’s team finished third in the conference and 20th at the NCAA regional meet. The women’s team finished as the conference runner-up that season and the next year earned a 14th place finish in the NCAA regional. The men’s outdoor track team finished between second and fourth in the GLIAC each year save one from 1999 through 2005. Coincidentally, the year that the team finished with its lowest standing in the conference, fifth place in 2002, was also the season that it earned its highest finish (13th place) in the NCAA Regionals. In 2006, team co-captain Adam Roach was named 200506 Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year by the GLIAC after finishing 11th in the nation in the
Griz Zimmermann
Joe Vogl
Adam Roach
Andy Bethune
Dan Dorian
Kraig Enders
Jay Scott
Scott Corby
Fred Neering
indoor mile (setting a University record with a time 4 minutes, 9.4 seconds) and 12th in the outdoor steeplechase. Vogl’s replacement as golf coach, Andy Bethune, also guided the team to a GLIAC championship in 2005.7
The men’s bowling team enjoyed tremendous success, beginning with the 1991 U. S. Bowling Congress (USBC) collegiate national championship. Coach Dan Dorian led the team to a runner-up finish in 1996 followed by the team’s second national championship the next year. Led by Bill “The Real Deal” O’Neill, who would go on to become the 2005-2006 Professional Bowling Association Rookie of the Year and the 2009-2010 U. S. Open Champion, the bowling team embarked on a remarkable run in 2004 when it finished as national runners-up. In 2006, SVSU bowlers became national champions once again, repeating in 2007 and finishing in second place in 2009.
Walt Head’s baseball program enjoyed its greatest success during this period. In the four seasons from 2000-2003, the Cardinals won two GLIAC regular season championships and another postseason conference tournament title. During this span, the Cardinals went a remarkable 83-28-1 in the GLIAC, enjoying the team’s first and, as of 2013, only 40-win season in 2000. Led that year by infielder Jason Valenzuela, who batted .448 and slugged .583, the Cardinals made the NCAA regional playoffs. Valenzuela set a team record for hits in a season with 86, getting on base half of the time he came to the plate. He also finished the season with 23 stolen bases in 25 attempts. Fellow infielder Kraig Enders also posted a wonderful season in 2000, batting just over .400 and setting the team record for home runs with 13. Like Valenzuela, Enders also stole 23 bases and was caught just once. Left-hander Tim Goheen was the standout pitcher, finishing 2000 with an 11-1 record and a 2.48 ERA. While the Cardinals failed to advance far in the postseason, they returned in 2001 and picked up right where they left off. As a team, the Cardinals batted .347 with a .516 slugging and a .442 on base percentage. Valenzuela again shone, hitting for a .369 average and stealing 32 bases. Other stars were Jay Scott (who returned to SVSU and joined the biology faculty in 2012), who batted .438 with 29 steals and slugger Adam Piggott, who finished with a .437 batting average and got on base more than half the time he came to the plate. Offense was clearly not the weakness for the Cardinals in 2001, and if there was one, it might have been the pitching. Scott Corby led the team in wins with 11, but he finished with a mediocre 4.52 ERA. The Cardinals again reached the NCAA postseason but again failed to advance deeply in the playoffs. During the ensuing three seasons, the Cardinals drifted back into the pack in the GLIAC, finishing with a losing conference record in 2006.8
The SVSU women’s softball team initially kept pace with their baseball counterparts, finishing with four consecutive winning seasons in the GLIAC from 1997 to 2000. In 1999, the Cardinals even won 42 games (against 17 losses), but in a deep GLIAC that season this was only good enough for a fourth-place conference finish. In fact, the Cardinals finished between third and fifth each year during this stretch of winning seasons. The coach during this period was Fred Neering, a long-time high school softball coach who as an assistant had helped the Bay City All Saints high school girls’ team to a 34-2 and state runner-up finish in 1996. Neering’s final three seasons at SVSU were less successful. The Cardinals sported a losing record in 2001, finishing seventh in the conference. After a 13-4-1 start to their season in 2002, the Cardinals finished 9-16 for another losing season in the GLIAC.
Sabrina Lane, who had been an assistant coach at Edinboro University in Pennsylvania, replaced Neering prior to the 2004 season. Lane spent three years at SVSU before becoming the head coach at St. Francis University in Pennsylvania. During those three seasons, the Cardinals finished in the middle of the GLIAC, going 31-27 in the conference and 68-71-1 overall.
Other Cardinal programs struggled. For instance, the men’s and women’s soccer teams experienced growing pains well into the middle of the 2000s. Soccer began as a varsity sport at SVSU in 1970, although it was dropped after only a few years following the departure of coach Paul Gill. Interested faculty, staff and students resurrected soccer as a co-educational club sport in 1980, with history professor Robert Braddock serving as the first coach. In 1994, soccer returned to varsity status, fielding men’s and women’s teams. The former finished its inaugural season with a 4-9 record while the women’s team was 1-3-5. For the next few seasons, the teams generally remained below .500. During its first decade, the varsity men’s team often sported rosters filled with underclassmen and, perhaps as a result, posted losing seasons. Likewise, the women’s team began slowly before recording a winning season in 2000 (7-6-2 overall and 4-4-1 in the GLIAC). The team’s record fell to 3-14-1 in 2001, the last season for Jim Conner as coach of the Lady Cardinals. Drago Dumbovic — a native of Croatia who had played soccer professionally for the Detroit Rockers and the Detroit Neon and coached the former from 1998 to 2001 before opening his Soccer Academy of Excellence in Midland in 2001 — became coach in 2003. After an initial 5-10-1 season, Dumbovic’s teams then ran off three consecutive winning seasons, finishing third in the GLIAC in 2004.
From 1997 to 2007, the men’s basketball team finished with an overall winning record twice: once under coach Warren Wood, who replaced Robert Pratt in 1997 and led the Cardinals to a 14-13 record in his only season, and a second time under Dean Lockwood in 2002-2003. Overall during those 10 seasons, the Cardinals played for three coaches (Jamie Matthews followed Dean Lockwood and coached the team from 2004 to 2007) and finished with an overall record of 108 wins and 153 losses (57-124 in the GLIAC).
The women’s team fared no better over this span. After Suzy Merchant’s departure, four different coaches helmed the women’s basketball team (Lori Flaherty, 1998-2000; Angela Jackson, 2000-2001; Kim Chandler, 2001-2004; and Vonnie Kilmer, 2004-2008). The only winning season in the conference came in 1998-1999 when the Cardinals actually improved upon Merchant’s final season, finishing 19-7 overall with an impressive 14-5 record in the conference. During the ensuing nine seasons, the team struggled, going 79-160 overall and 39-124 in the GLIAC.
In 1997, Bob Sells became the coach of the SVSU volleyball team following two successful seasons as an assistant at Northwood University. Initially his teams finished in the middle of the GLIAC, sporting an overall 33-30 record in 1997 and 1998. After that, the team descended rapidly in the conference standings, finishing in the cellar in 2002 with a 1-17 conference record. Will Stanton, previously the head coach at Mott Community College, replaced Sells before the start of the 2003 season. Although Stanton eventually would lead the Cardinals to success, his teams’ initial seasons were rough. The Cardinals were winless in the conference in 2003 and 2004, and the team only defeated two GLIAC opponents in
