Glenn Van Wieren first played and then coached basketball and other sports for 33 years while also teaching at Hope College.
The son of a Holland Furnace Company salesman, Van Wieren led one of the most successful NCAA Division III basketball programs in the country after being a standout athlete first at Holland High and then winning 11 varsity letters as a student-athlete in basketball, baseball and cross-country at Hope. The 1964 graduate ranks as one of the top scorers in the Hope basketball program’s history and earned all-conference status four times.
He took over as head coach of the Hope program in 1977 following his coach, Russ DeVette, and guided his teams to a 660-219 record with just one losing season and 31 consecutive winning seasons. When he retired in 2009-10 from coaching, Van Wieren was fourth among Division III coaches for all-time career wins, fifth all-time in winning percentage and he was just the sixth to achieve 600 coaching wins.
He led the Dutch to 21 NCAA Division III Tournament appearances, including two national runner-up finishes in 1996 and ‘98, and a record 17 MIAA championships. Twice his teams had unbeaten regular seasons – in 1983-84 and 1994-95.
Van Wieren also counted 115 former players who became basketball coaches themselves, and twice he was named the national Division III Coach of the Year by Basketball Times. He also did stints coaching baseball, cross-country and soccer teams and coached conference championship teams in baseball and soccer.
He is a member of the Basketball Coaches Association of Michigan, which he served as a board member, and the court at DeVos Fieldhouse on campus is named in honor of him and his coaching mentor Russ DeVette and their wives, Jacquelyn, and Doris.
Van Wieren held the academic rank of Professor of Kinesiology at Hope. Before coaching at Hope, he taught and coached at Grand Haven High.