Men's basketball Head Coach Bill Fenlon(right)
stands next to athletic director Stevie Baker-Watson(left)
as he holds the "game ball" from his 500th win.
The ball which was presented by Baker-Watson
was not the actuall game ball from
DePauw's victory over Ohio Wesleyan.
SAM CARAVANA / THE DEPAUW
Having more than 500 wins in a career puts a coach at an elite level. A Mike Krzyzewski, Roy Williams, Bob Knight, John Wooden kind of level.
While those four men coach in the ranks of Division I, the accomplishment for DePauw’s Bill Fenlon means just as much in Division III.
“He’s a great coach and he’s won a lot of games,” senior Tommy Fernitz said about his coach. “Getting his 500th, you could tell it really meant a lot to him. It was very emotional, to get that victory was just a really special moment for Coach Fenlon and for our team.”
In his 23rd year at DePauw and his 30th coaching at a collegiate level, Fenlon reached the 500 win milestone last Friday night, with a 69-65 win over the Ohio Wesleyan Battling Bishops. The win moved the Tigers to the finals of the North Coast Athletic Conference tournament and kept their season alive.
And if you ask Fenlon, he’ll tell you that’s what matters most but for his players, to win the game and help their coach reach a milestone, it was pretty significant.
“As a team we knew Fen was close to 500 and that is something we wanted to accomplish this year,” senior Frank Patton III said. “So us getting him his 500 while beating OWU was pretty special.”
“Getting it was a non issue for me,” Fenlon said. “What the issue was for us, was getting the game in front of us. 501 was the big one for me because it would mean we’re talking about playing today.”
For the winningest coach in DePauw’s more than a century old basketball program, the achievement has been long in the works.
Fenlon’s first coaching gig came in 1985, when he took over the reigns at The University of the South-Sewanee. After an opening season that saw Fenlon guide the Tigers to a record four games below .500, he finished his three year stop in Sewanee with seasons of 12 and 14 wins.
From there, Fenlon moved on to the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology where he coached the Engineers for three seasons. His best year came in his first at Rose-Hulman when he guided the team to a 19-8 record. In his final two seasons, Fenlon led the Engineers to matching 17-9 records.
Fenlon then spent one season with Southwestern University and led them to a record of 19-8.
It was then that Fenlon took over the reigns of the Tigers in 1992 and found his home. In each of his 23 years in Greencastle, the Tigers, under Fenlon’s leadership, have recorded double digit win totals and only twice have the Tigers had a record below .500.
He’s coached players like Brad Stevens, the former head coach at Butler University and the current head coach of the Boston Celtics in the NBA. But Fenlon’s also coached players who haven’t set their career path towards basketball, and for him, they’re all the same.
“What you learn through competition is that you have to work really hard to have success,” Fenlon said. “When you leave here and you close a big real estate deal or make a big sale, the next week, your kids are still going to want to eat. There are things in life that demand your full and undivided attention and successful people are able to attack, regroup and attack again. Those are the things you learn in competition.”
Fenlon’s current group of players understands this and is grateful to have learned from him.
“He’s had a lot of players and coached a lot of guys,” Fernitz said. “To be a part of his 500th, is just really special.”
For now, he’ll just keep winning.