Men's Basketball Coaching Staff

Head Coach Jim Kessler (E-mail)
33rd Season at Grace College * 1970 Grace Graduate
592-466 career record * 1992 National Championship * 9 MCC Titles

The Grace College Lancers men's basketball team has been identifiable by one common trend over the last 32 seasons and that trend is head coach Jim Kessler. Coach "K" begins his 33rd season at the helm of the Lancers basketball program and is currently 11th among active winningest coaches with 570 victories.

Coach Kessler and the team are coming off of a great 2007-08 season which saw the Lancers make a deep run at the NAIA tournament for an "Elite Eight" finish. The appearance at Branson, Missouri was Kessler's first return to the NAIA tournament in 15 years and the deepest run since the national championship team in 1992. With a host of solid returning players from last year's 26-10 team, Coach Kessler is anxious about his 33rd season.

"I am looking forward to this year's group as many of them step into new rolls," said Kessler. "Eric, Michael, and Austin are now the pace setters for our team and their leadership and work ethic will determine the direction of our season."

Kessler's team had one of its best MCC conference seasons last year at 11-5 finishing a game out of first place. The second place finish is the highest Grace has finished in conference play since their last Mid-Central College Conference title in 1992-93.

As he approaches his 600th win, it is the journey, not the destination, which keeps Kessler around the game. In his fourth decade, Coach Kessler enjoys not only the practices, but the opportunity to see the impact Christ has on the lives of the players he coaches. It has been his mission over the past 30+ years to help his players grow in their faith through missions trips, community service projects, inseason outreach opportunities, and Lancer Basketball Camps.

This past summer, Kessler took six of the Lancer basketball team members to the Philippines to administer basketball clinics and do missions work. Other international trips he has been a part of include the Bahamas, Egypt, Germany, France, and Kenya. Kessler has also made extensive contributions to the Grace College Campus. He has established campus projects that have raised funds for the college library and for equipment and programs aimed toward enhancing the quality of life at Grace. In addition, he had impacted the local community by organizing annual basketball tournaments to benefit such organizations as Habitat for Humanity and Kosciusko County Cancer Care Fund.

Coach Kessler graduated from Grace College in 1970 after a four-year career with the Lancer basketball team. He is married to Susanne and the couple has four daughters-Kim, Sarah, Jenny, and Janelle, four sons-in-law and seven grandchildren. Coach K and his wife reside in Winona Lake, Indiana.

Head Assistant Coach Jon Yeh
8th Season at Grace College * Eastern Nazarene College head coach for three years

Yeh returns to the ranks of the Lancers basketball staff this season after a three-year head coaching stint at Eastern Nazarene College. He was an assistant coach under Jim Kessler from 1999-2006 at Grace College.

While at Eastern Nazarene, Yeh led the program to its most wins in six years in 2008-09, won the Commonwealth Coast Conference Sportsmanship award twice, and recruited players who won conference Rookie of the Week honors three times in his last two seasons.

“I know I have grown tremendously as a coach in the three years I was away from Grace," Yeh said. "I look forward to blending my experience with that of Coach Kessler and Coach Zawlocki to keep Grace an elite program.”

During his time at Grace, Yeh recruited four Indiana Top 40 workout participants (Abernethy, Springer, M. Moore, and K. Johnson). He helped lead the Lancers to a second-place finish in the NCCAA National Tournament, and the team improved their record every year except one. He also recruited the nucleus of players that led Grace to their back-to-back NAIA Elite Eight finishes in 2008 and 2009.

“It’s very exciting to return to a basketball program and an institution that I know so well. In addition, I’m looking forward to working with the student-athletes, having coached some of them at Lancer Camp and recruiting others while I was at ENC.”


Assistant Coach Don Zawlocki
5th Season at Grace College * Bethel Graduate 1982
27 years coaching experience * NCCAA All-American 1982

Don Zawlocki enters his fifth season on the Grace coaching staff. Coach "Z" brings a wealth of experience to the practice floor and sideline for the Lancers with over 20 years of coaching at the Indiana High School level.

A majority of his responsibilities include working with post players along with the Lancers defensive attack. Coach Zawlocki is currently a high school math teacher at Whitko High School. He and his wife have one son, Danny, and the family resides in South Whitley, Indiana.

 

 

Assistant Coach Mark Delaney
1st Season at Grace College


Mark Delaney joins the Grace Lancers' coaching staff for the 2009-10 season. He comes to Winona Lake from Northern State University, where he was a graduate assistant for a year under legendary coach Don Meyer.

Prior to Northern State, Delaney was the head coach/athletic director at Monclova Christian High School (Ohio) for a year. His extensive resume includes being an assistant coach at Cedarville University for a year, an assistant coach at Ashland High School for two years, and the head freshman coach at Wooster High School for a year.