IT’S EASY TO SLUR SPORTS IN OUR SOCIETY. While the homeless multiply and teacher salaries languish, professional athletes playing games expect contracts worth millions of dollars. Then they guzzle sugar water in tv ads aimed at children. Our priorities seem screwy. Sports. Sports. Sports. The man on the street knows the NBA scoring leader or who ranks number one in the polls, but the major issues of the day go unresolved. Just when you’re ready to dismiss the relevance of organized athletics you meet Coach Don Meyer.

    If you’re a sports junkie, the numbers and accolades associated with Meyer, Northern State University’s head men’s basketball coach, are crazy good. After coaching men’s college basketball for 34 seasons (entering the current NSU season), Meyer ranked fifth in total wins (841) by any active or retired men’s coach at a four-year institution. As of this moment he has added 21 more wins and climbed to fourth.

    In the ten years before he arrived at NSU in 1999, Meyer’s teams at David Lipscomb University, in Nashville, Tennessee, averaged more victories per season (32) than any other college program in the nation. During his 24 years at Lipscomb, his teams earned 13 national tournament berths, won a national title in 1986, and Meyer was named national coach of the year in 1989 and 1990.

    At NSU, Meyer has continued a winning tradition with a conference championship, six consecutive 20-victory seasons and conference coach-of-the-year honors. It is very possible that Meyer will reach the 1000-victory level during his career, a truly astonishing achievement. It is also possible he could become college basketball’s all-time leading winner.

Aberdeen expects basketball success
    In Aberdeen, where watching basketball is a dominating wintertime activity, coaching the NSU men’s team attracts more attention than perhaps any individual in the community. That includes Aberdeen’s mayor, Mike Levsen, who describes NSU games as a bonding experience for the community and the region. “The men’s basketball program at NSU is very important to the social and cultural scene of the city,” says Levsen, a Meyer admirer. “I can’t think of anything that brings so many people together.”

    Attendance numbers prove Levsen’s analysis. Last year, NSU men’s games attracted more spectators –an average of 3,916 fans per home game- than at any other NCAA Division II school, a remarkable feat considering that there are more than 200 such basketball programs, many at universities enrolling more students than Northern and located in larger communities. NSU attendance has ranked in the top ten for the last nine years.

    Although the victories keep piling up, they aren’t the only goal of Don Meyer. If you think that someone this successful must have a thoughtful approach to getting the most out of his players and cultivating an experience for them that transcends mere basketball, than you’d be right. Meyer loves sports and athletic competition, but contained within his drive for success is a perspective that stresses character over victory.

    Meyer’s coaching philosophy emphasizes the development of discipline, loyalty to teammates, and a fierce work ethic. There’s also a unique approach to being a player-leader that Meyer calls servant-leadership. Servant-leaders, Meyer says, are ready to work hard alongside everybody else, including the people they lead. “A real leader,” he explains, “serves others rather than having others serving him. With that in mind, we work on the important things that make you a better person, teammate and leader as well as a better basketball player. The wins take care of themselves.”

    Meyer takes special pride in the community service and academic achievements of his athletes. In 34 years of coaching, only two of his athletes failed to graduate, and one of those left school early to try professional basketball. “We put pressure on the kids to do well academically,” Meyer explains. “And we want them to graduate with a meaningful degree so they can do something positive with their lives.” Last semester’s team grade point average was an impressive 3.37. All the team’s players are involved in civic work, especially with youth.

    Meyer’s ability to attract superb student-athletes to NSU has endeared him to Patrick Schloss, the university’s president. “It’s easy for coaches to look for athletic talent,” says Schloss. “but Coach Meyer brings us fine individuals. It is no exaggeration for me to call them genuine student-athletes. There hasn’t been one semester since he arrived here that the team grade point average didn’t exceed the overall school’s grade point average.”

    “Don Meyer,” President Schloss adds, “has been Northern’s best ambassador. We know he has had offers and could go many other places. But he loves being at a smaller school where he can interact with students and others in our campus community. He’s been a model for our faculty, our students and for his basketball team.”

This region is his home
Don Meyer was born in Wayne, Nebraska 62 years ago. He was a successful college athlete at the Colorado State College, participating in baseball, his first love, as well as basketball, where he was named an All-American, but his aspirations to play professional baseball never panned out. “I wasn’t good enough,” he flatly says.

    Instead, Meyer earned a PhD and took to coaching, and for the student-athletes he has taught and befriended, and for the spectators who have enjoyed watching his hard-working, well-prepared teams that was a good choice. Meyer, it seems, was born to be a teacher and a coach.

    His first stint as a head coach came in 1972 at Hamline University in St. Paul, moved to Lipscomb University three years later, and when that institution decided to move to Division 1 Dr. Don Meyer decided to move on. Lipscomb’s loss was, as they say, Northern’s gain.

    Meyer’s demeanor during practices and games ranges from fiery to contemplative. He’s icy serious as he stalks the sideline, staring, gesturing, talking and shouting at his charges. In his hand is the ever-present micro-cassette recorder, a device of choice for taking notes. Always the teacher, he encourages, instructs and motivates. And after years of experience, teaching comes to him easily, intuitively. He knows how to correct mistakes without belittling a player, or how to compliment an athlete without swelling his ego. He can be intimidating to a young man unaccustomed to his silent pondering in the midst of conversation.

    This is a man whose distinct, rough voice when directed at his players can be heard above the din at feverish Wachs Arena. In the locker room after a difficult loss he has openly wept, feeling lousy for his players who worked hard only to fall short on the scoreboard. That sort of emotional display rallies his players and inspires loyalty. The man knows basketball, but his big heart becomes apparent, and for many players it is a part of him that overshadows even his considerable coaching skills.

    What sort of young man does Coach Meyer recruit? “I want kids we’ll enjoy coaching,” he says. “I look for toughness, intelligence, and a willingness to be part of a team. We also want kids who will be a good fit at our school and in our community.”

    Steve Smiley played basketball at NSU after graduating high school in Colorado. He now serves as an assistant coach for the Wolves. Smiley, who started his college playing career at NSU the same year Meyer first arrived on campus, had such a positive experience that he wrote a book about Meyer after graduating in 2004. “He’s a unique guy, that’s for sure,” Smiley says of Meyer. “He’s smart and tough, but you figure out in a hurry that he really cares for his players. On the court, in practice or in games, he knows how to push the competitive buttons in you. He becomes like a father-figure for his players, and that tough-love personality changes once you know him off the basketball court.”

    Smiley described frequent visits by the team to Meyer’s home for team dinners or gatherings where players saw the more relaxed side of their coach. “He’s quite hilarious, really funny, and I’ve gotten to know that side of him even more as an assistant coach,” says Smiley. “He knows that there must be a boundary between himself and the players, but as an assistant coach I’ve gotten to know how fun-loving he is.”

Meyer’s basketball gestalt
    This year’s team is young and inexperienced. It opened strong but has suffered inconsistencies after the holiday break. Meyer hates losing, but is philosophical about it. “We’re playing hard. And it’s rewarding to see how a team handles tough times,” he says. “One of the best lessons as an athlete is learning how to lose. Being a gracious winner is also a big lesson. But think about what Rudyard Kipling said. If you learn how to deal with winning and losing and treat those two imposters the same, than you’ll be a better person, a richer man.”

    Indeed, during Meyer’s initial year at NSU the team finished 13-14, his first losing season as a coach in more than two decades. But that team, insists Meyer, endured many hardships and challenges. “That group,” he fondly recalls, “never gave up. They fought through adversity, and they are one of my favorite all-time teams.”

    In Meyer’s cramped Barnett Center office are stacks of brochures, leaflets and loose papers brimming with inspirational quotes and stories. He snatches several and hands them to me, suggesting they are useful. A religious man, Meyer has included many biblical quotations on these sheets.

    It is barely 8 AM, shortly after a rigorous practice has just concluded, and players are lining up while Meyer completes our interview. The athletes are here to record their heart rates, a daily ritual that helps Meyer and his staff track the health of the team. The bald coach asks a tall lanky athlete what he is carrying. It’s an MP3 player explains the young man. Meyer looks puzzled and the player politely chuckles at the generation gap. The coach’s stern demeanor, so evident and commanding on the practice floor, has faded.

    Despite focusing so much of his life on college basketball, Meyer acknowledges the supportive role of competitive athletics in our lives. “There is too much emphasis on sports, particularly gamblers trying to make money from sports,” Meyer says. “The aspects of sports that are most important aren’t monetarily inclined. There is great value by being part of a team, from learning how to work with a team. There’s nothing like sharing the good times and the bad times with teammates. I’ve coached a lot of games, but it’s the personal relationships I remember most. Sports, like other activities such as drama, music, and the arts can lead to great team experiences.”

    College athletes, according to Meyer, enjoy special advantages. “They learn discipline, commitment and how to budget their time. These things make you a better student. They also learn to compete in the classroom, and not against their classmates, but to get the best grades they can get.”

    Basketball happens to be Don Meyer’s occupation. He coaches the game, sells his own line of videotapes to help players and coaches, and promotes his own camps for coaches and players. 

    But if you pull the ball from his hands and lift the whistle from around his neck you can put Meyer’s life into clearer perspective. Don Meyer invests a good deal of personal energy into self-discipline and an ongoing journey toward self-betterment. You can appreciate how those characteristics cannot help but become fused with his coaching style. Ultimately, he expects a great deal from his players, just as he expects a great deal from himself. It has nothing to do with basketball. And it has everything to do with basketball.