Winning comes in short supply at NIU

By Frank Rusnak and Gerold Shelton
November 4, 2004

Part 1 of a two-part series

In 51 chances over the past three seasons, NIU intercollegiate sports teams have won only one Mid-American Conference team title.

During those three years, 11 of NIU’s 17 athletic teams averaged below a .500 record despite spending about $2.7 million in head-coaching salaries. NIU students paid more than $6 million to the Athletics Department in student fees last year alone, of which about half was used for Athletics Department personnel, said NIU Assistant Director of Finance Sheila Berg. The other half is spent on scholarships.

Baseball, men’s and women’s tennis, football, volleyball and wrestling are the exceptions to the sub-.500 records.

New NIU Athletics Director Jim Phillips said this is a problem he hopes will be changed.

“Certainly we are going to try and address it,” Phillips said of the losing. “And certainly it is a goal of all 17 head coaches and all 426 of our student athletes [to win more titles].”

Over the past three years, Kent State and Central Michigan have led the MAC with 10 team championships each. Only three other MAC schools out of the 13 have won just one title. Buffalo has won none.

This excludes Kentucky, which only competes in the MAC for men’s soccer and has one title: and Central Florida, which only competes in the MAC for football and has none.

The lack of team success is partially caused by the large coaching turnover by many teams, Phillips said.

NIU has had nine new coaches in 15 head coaching positions since 2000.

Developing continuity within a program is one of the most important keys to success in collegiate athletics and NIU hasn’t had that, Phillips said.

“We have great coaches and great student athletes and you have to put that together with great facilities and watch everything grow,” Phillips said.

Setting up a title

Senior outside hitter Tera Lobdell is unique at NIU: She has a MAC title.

Lobdell is the only remaining player from the volleyball’s 2001 MAC championship team that went 24-6 overall and advanced to the NCAA tournament.

A freshman on that championship team, a lot has changed for Lobdell as she nears the end of her collegiate career on a team that is now 9-18 overall and tied for third-to-last place in the MAC.

“Everyone brought something to the team, and everyone knew their role,” recalled Lobdell about the 2001 squad. “We had fun, and we went out there and knew that we were going to win.”

Not everyone got along off the court on that team, Lobdell said, but it never showed on the court. The team registered an NIU-best 18-straight wins under the guidance of head coach Todd Kress.

“I don’t want to say you were scared of [Kress], but he pushed us,” Lobdell said. “Practice was dreadful at times, and that continued on the court for games.”

After the season, Kress used his newfound glory to land a job at the Atlantic Coast Conference’s Florida State University. This meant the style of coaching, practice methods and demeanor would all change for the returning Huskies.

The following season, NIU hired Loyola University’s assistant volleyball coach Ray Gooden.

Under Gooden, volleyball almost tripled its losses from the prior season. They went from 24-6 in 2001 to 13-17 in 2002.

“It’s always hard to adapt to a new coach,” Lobdell said. “Some people have had three coaches in four years. It’s always hard with the new coach at first, but then once they get established, then they leave.”

Lobdell’s statement summed up a common theme at mid-major universities in general and with NIU volleyball more specifically.

Prior to Kress, Pete Waite was the NIU volleyball coach for 11 years. In Waite’s last season in DeKalb – 1998 – he led the team to a 27-7 record. He used that season to catapult him to the Big Ten’s University of Wisconsin with the same position.

When Kress took over in 1999, the Huskies more than doubled their losses with a 10-15 overall record.

Now, if NIU can achieve success again in volleyball, it potentially would have to worry about losing Gooden, who pointed to funding as the biggest problem with mid-major programs.

“My goal is to get to an NCAA Final Four as a head coach,” Gooden said. “Can it be done at Northern? We’re trying to do it at least by winning a MAC championship and then going from there. Some schools don’t have the resources available to help do that. So that’s why some people come into a mid-major, do what they can and then take that next step.

“The biggest thing in a mid-major is to have stability. I’d love to be a coach at the highest level possible. Maybe the MAC lends itself to that, maybe it doesn’t.”

Title count

MAC tournament titles during the last three full academic school years

Kent State: 10

Central Michigan: 10

Western Michigan: 7

Ball State: 5

Toledo: 5

Marshall: 4

Eastern Michigan: 3

Miami-Ohio: 2

Akron: 1

Bowling Green: 1