Five Alumni, One Team Earn BVU Athletics Hall of Fame Induction
Packed dining room enjoys banquet as part of Homecoming celebration
Five individuals and one team were enshrined into the Buena Vista University Athletics Hall of Fame during a banquet and ceremony attended by 225 people in Siebens Forum on Sept. 27.
Keven Besch ’87, Mike Wilson ’92, Rick Schweitzberger ’00, Jennifer (Lange) Mavis ’02, and Brad Blum ‘11 join the 2003-04 BVU women’s basketball team as the newest members of the BVU Athletics Hall of Fame.
“I want you all to know how much I love you and how proud I am of how much you’ve gone on to do in the last 20 years, how you’ve contributed to your communities, to your work force, and to your families.”
-BVU Coach Janet Berry to members of her 2003-04 Hall-of-Fame team
Keven Besch ’87 wrestled his final two collegiate seasons at Buena Vista following his transfer from Waldorf College. Under Hall of Fame Head Coach Al Baxter, Besch added to his All-American status after joining the Beavers by placing third at the NCAA Tournament as a junior and seventh as a senior, both at 177 pounds. He recorded 24 pins during his BVU career and was an Iowa Conference runner-up each of those years.
Following his graduation, Besch taught and coached at Storm Lake Middle School, Storm Lake High School, and with the Beavers. He has been a frequent contributor to BVU wrestling efforts in the 37 years since his graduation, a program he has followed closely as a member of the Storm Lake community with his wife, Kate (Bodholdt) ’17, and their children.
“I’m just so thankful,” Besch said, recalling his notification of the Hall of Fame inclusion. “I feel like that was something that I should have never dreamt about because I didn’t think that could ever be me. I’m very blessed to be a part of this group of athletes.”
Mike Wilson ’92 was a multi-sport athlete for the Beavers during his time on campus, primarily in football and track and field. On the gridiron, he finished his career ranked second in the Beavers’ all-time total offensive charts while holding seven records.
In track and field, Wilson competed for three seasons and won a pair of conference individual titles and became an All-American in the javelin, a sport in which he remains the BVU record-holder. The longtime Mount Pleasant High School Principal also played two seasons of basketball for the Beavers and was named the team’s Most Valuable Player as a senior.
“Buena Vista pretty much gave me my trajectory,” said Wilson, who resides with his wife, Kate, and their family in Mount Pleasant. “The ability to make connections with so many quality people, coaches, faculty members, friends I’ve met through BVU will always stick with me.”
Rick Schweitzberger ’00 also excelled in wrestling for Coach Baxter by earning 114 career victories. As a sophomore, the Kingsley native placed eighth at the NCAA Meet at 133 pounds, then won 39 matches and was the national runner-up as a senior, giving him two All-American honors. Schweitzberger, who joins his older brother, Ryan Schweitzberger ’98 as a hall-of-famer, was a member of teams that recorded three top-15 national finishes. He was a sure bet to earn All-American status as a junior but was disqualified from the national meet prior to competition due to the presence of a fever blister.
“I don’t know if I would change that for anything,” Schweitzberger said of the adversity he suffered at the end of his junior season. “Because I don’t know if that doesn’t happen, I don’t know if I perform the way I do my senior year because that made me realize how quick things can get taken away from you, and you have zero control.”
Schweitzberger, who manages construction and development for Signature Real Estate in Urbandale, resides in Van Meter with his wife, Annie, and their children.
Jennifer (Lange) Mavis ’02 was also a multi-sport athlete for the Beavers where she competed in track and field and basketball. While competing during the outdoor track and field season for BVU for four years, Mavis earned All-American honors twice in the shot put, placing fifth in 2000 and eighth in 2002. Additionally, the Norfolk, Neb., native claimed two Iowa Conference titles, winning the javelin in 2000 and the shot put in 2001.
Jenny was also a four-year member on the hardwood and was a career 50-percent shooter and still ranks in the top 15 all-time for BVU in field goal percentage.
She a Business Systems Analyst who supports finance teams at Boys Town in Omaha, Neb., where she and her husband, Don, raise their two children Lizzy and Thomas.
“Attending Buena Vista was an opportunity to get a really great education in accounting and have a great opportunity to continue the athletics that I love,” she says. “To continue basketball and track in not such a huge college environment, but in a kind of a smaller environment where I could still feel the personal touch with teachers and with the friends I had there.”
Brad Blum ’11 put together one of the more decorated baseball careers under current Head Coach Steve Eddie ’00 ME ’07. Blum started all 170 games in which he played and became the first player in program history to reach 200 career hits. He was an instrumental piece on a team that captured the 2010 Iowa Conference Championship (the program’s first since 1981) while it became the first team in program history to win both the regular season and conference tournament title in the same season.
During Blum’s four seasons, BVU posted an overall record of 110-62 while going 57-34 in conference play. As a senior in 2011, Blum and the Beavers qualified into their second straight NCAA Tournament and would secure a Regional Championship and advance deep into the College World Series.
Blum, one of three siblings to earn a BVU diploma, finished his career with 222 hits (then a school record), a .371 batting average, 176 runs scored, 68 stolen bases and 54 hit-by-pitches, a mark that still stands at BVU.
“Now to be a hall-of-famer, it’s a special feeling,” said Blum, a teacher and coach at Underwood High School who resides in Underwood with his wife, Stephanie. “I enjoyed every second while I was up at Buena Vista. I wouldn’t change it for the world. So, I guess to cap it off by being a Hall-of-Fame inductee, that’s pretty cool.”
The 2003-04 Buena Vista women’s basketball team was one of the most dominant in program history. The Beavers finished the year at 27-3 overall with a 15-1 mark during conference play and captured both the regular season and conference tournament championship. It’s the program’s lone conference tournament title.
The winning ways didn’t stop there as BVU earned the automatic bid into its first NCAA Tournament since 1997 before coming up short in the Sweet 16 with a 70-66 loss to Puget Sound.
Current BVU Hall of Famer Amy (Meggers) Divis ’04 was among the group to help lead the way as she was named the Iowa Conference MVP and an Honorable Mention All-American. Fellow BVU Hall of Famer Katie (Maguire) Campbell ‘06 was a First Team All-Conference selection while both Kristina (Kapler) Robinson ‘05 and Kelli Taylor-Noble ’04 ME ’07 were voted Second Team All-Conference selections. Head Coach Janet Berry was named the IIAC Coach of the Year.
Berry noted that the team’s three losses included setbacks to Morningside, the eventual NAIA champion; Loras, in overtime; and to Puget Sound in the Sweet 16.
One of the most memorable victories, according to the head coach, came in the second round of the NCAA tournament when BVU stormed back from a 6-point deficit with three minutes remaining. The Beavers tied the game with two minutes left, then won the contest by eight, upsetting Carleton College, which was ranked No. 13 in the country.
“Fourteen points we made up in the last three minutes,” she says. “We had ‘Siebens Magic’ that day!”
Berry went on to laud members of this hall-of-fame team.
“I am so grateful to each and every one of you that I got to be along for that journey,” she said. “I want you all to know how much I love you and how proud I am of how much you’ve gone on to do in the last 20 years, how you’ve contributed to your communities, to your work force, and to your families. You have gone on to do some amazing things. I also want you to know that ‘once a Beaver, always a Beaver’ and welcome to the Buena Vista Hall of Fame.”
Below: Members of the 2003-04 women’s basketball team who attended the BVU Athletics Hall of Fame banquet and induction on Sept. 27 include, front row from left: Crystal (Richardson) Coleman ’05, Crystal (Kruger) Neale ’06, Tia (Moore) Showalter ’08, and Katie (Maguire) Campbell ’06. Second row, from left: Kristina (Kapler) Robinson ’05, Head Coach Janet Berry, Megan (Holtorf) Hauswirth ’05, Kelli Taylor-Noble ’04 ME ’07, Lindsey (Meyer) Calderon ’07, Kelli (Staley) Cameron ’06. Back row, from left: Dr. Jess (Griggs) Kennedy ’06, Lindsay (Stoolman) Brown ’04, Holly (McDonough) Jones ’06, Gelene (Bousum) Smutz ’04, Tracy (Hartwig) Furrow ’07, Amy (Meggers) Divis ’04, and Assistant Coach Steve Berry ’79.
