More than a president, Central’s Weller was Forever Dutch

Wellers At NCAA

PELLA—He was regarded as one of America’s top college and university presidents. He oversaw the physical transformation of the Central College campus and the rise of the school’s enrollment to record levels. As an NCAA vice president, he was instrumental in integrating women’s athletics within the NCAA. His was a prominent and highly respected national voice in intercollegiate athletics. He was a passionate advocate for the student-athlete concept and even authored the original Division III philosophy.

This isn’t about any of that.

Ken Weller, who passed away Friday at age 96, was Central’s president from 1969-90 and the school’s president emeritus for the 32 years since, but to students, coaches and fans he was a wise mentor, cheerleader, Central fan and loyal friend.

He was Forever Dutch.

Central has won 11 NCAA Division III team championships and he personally witnessed most of them. When coach Ron Schipper put Central on the athletics map with an improbable Stagg Bowl victory in Alabama in 1974, he was there. When Cam Ratering and her Central teammates navigated the snowy, slippery cross country course in Kenosha, Wisconsin en route to capturing the NCAA’s first-ever women’s championship in 1981, Weller was there, with his patient, heavily bundled wife Shirely snapping photos with the family’s Kodak Instamatic camera. When Central’s Deana Bergquist lined a 3-run hit with two outs in the bottom of the seventh for a one-run NCAA softball title game win over Allegheny College (Pa.) in 1988, he and Schipper were loudly cheering from behind the center field fence. He marveled over the artistry of national volleyball player of the year Abbie Brown in 1998 and 1999 and of Gagliardi Trophy-winning football quarterback Blaine Hawkins last fall.

But he wasn’t just there when Central was chasing championships. Wrestling coach Eric Van Kley, now the school’s athletics director, remembers his first team going 0-15-1. Things weren’t going much better the day the Iowa Conference tournament was staged at Storm Lake in 2010.

“It was snowing and numerous highways were shut down,” Van Kley said. “A lot of the parents couldn’t even get there. And secondly, we were going to get last place. We had no shot. Yet Dr. Weller and (athletics director) Al Dorenkamp were there to support me and our kids. He just wanted me to know that in good times and bad, we had his full support. I don’t know that we won more than three matches all day, but it wasn’t about that. It was him saying we value you and we value the guys on the team and what we’re trying to do here so much that we’re going to drive five hours on the worst roads ever.

“That left a lasting impression on me.”

He made a similar feeling with Laura (Bach) Olson ’93, who was a softball catcher from Mapleton, Minnesota and a member of two national championship squads.

“My freshman year, I saw him at some kind of campus event, and he already knew my name,” Olson said. “He also invited me to his office once just to kind of sit down and chat. He wanted to know what brought me there from Minnesota and what was it about Central’s campus that appealed to me.”

Weller also often sat behind home plate so as a catcher, Olson said the conversations continued throughout her career

“And when I’ve come back to games since, I’d sit right behind him and we’d still have conversations, right up through last year,” she said.

Olson saw Weller as part of Central’s magic.

“It was mostly just making campus feel like home,” she said. “Everyone always talks about how when they walk on Central’s campus, it just feels like home. And I think he was one of the reasons, quite honestly. You knew you were important to him. I don’t know how many people would think that if they were having a rough time or they needed something that you could walk into the president of the university’s office and talk with them. We went to his house right away when we were freshmen and he knew who I was. It felt special.”

Football coach Jeff McMartin ’90 recalled that his commencement ceremony was Weller’s last. More than half of Central’s alumni by then had diplomas signed by Weller.

“As a student, I remember Dr. Weller was always around,” McMartin said. “Just on campus, walking across the bridge. He was very approachable. For the students, we knew that he supported us. I think we all saw him as our leader and he was very much in charge of things but he was somebody that you felt connected to and that he cared about you. That was pretty impactful.”

When McMartin returned as coach in 2004, he received an unusual request on his first day.

“He asked for my playbook,” McMartin said with a smile. Weller had served as an assistant coach at Hope College when Schipper played quarterback there in the early ‘50s and, in retirement, rarely missed a game, sometimes observing from the end zone, sometimes perched behind the coaches in the press box, with binoculars draped around his neck.

“Early on, he would come into my office on a weekly basis and tell me what he’d observed and offer some suggestions as well,” McMartin said. “Even this past season, we went over (to Weller’s residence in a Pella senior care center) and gave him the full report. He’d watched every game online and had a lot of questions.”

McMartin valued the insights Weller provided beyond the X’s and O’s.

“I think those are the things I sought out more than anything,” McMartin said. “He was a tremendous leader, so anytime he would share things I wanted to hear it.”

Weller could put feelings into words and give life to dry discussions about the student-athlete concept.

“One thing I really took away from him is that you really can have it all here,” Van Kley said. “You have tremendous students wo have tremendous athletics experiences and that we help mold into tremendous people and one doesn’t have to take away from the other. I mean, I think that’s the essence of Division III. I’ve just never been around anyone who could better explain that or was more passionate about it than Dr. Weller, not anyone at Central and not anybody in Indianapolis (at the NCAA headquarters).

George Wares ’76 is the winningest softball coach in Division III history and a member of the NFCA Hall of Fame.

“He and Coach Schipper are the two most influential people in my Central life,” Wares said.

As a student, Wares held Weller in high regard.

“We didn’t always know everything that was going on as students but we felt like the place was being run with us in mind,” he said. “There was the respect we had for him but he also had great respect for the students that attend Central.”

The softball program was struggling when Wares came to Pella as the high school boys’ basketball coach and expressed an interest in coaching softball for the Dutch.

“He believed in me when probably no one else thought this would work,” Wares said.

Weller fell in love with Central softball. Even in their late 80s, he and Shirely would take the train to Flagstaff, Arizona, then drive to Tucson to watch the Dutch play during spring break.

“He really loved watching us play,” Wares said.

When the Dutch were in Illinois for the 1988 softball championship, the team’s seniors had to miss commencement ceremonies on campus. But then Weller arrived at the team’s hotel, in full academic regalia, to award the diplomas. He didn’t want them to miss that experience but also relished the vivid illustration of combined athletics and academics achievement that the improvised ceremony represented. He believed to his core that athletes who were diligent students became better athletes, and that students who were committed to developing as athletes became better students.

If the Weller model for using athletics and academics in tandem as mutually beneficial avenues to success were drawn up on the board, it would look like Emilie (Hanson) Brown ’95. Central’s all-time women’s basketball scoring leader, a 1993 national champion and later the Division III player of the year, Brown was also a two-time CoSIDA Academic All-American of the Year. She was the first Central student-athlete to receive the prestigious NCAA Top Eight Award for academic and athletic achievement. Weller was no longer Central’s president yet beamed like a grandparent when Brown received the award at the 1996 NCAA Convention in Dallas.

“It makes me teary just thinking about that,” Brown said. “He was so proud. I don’t think I realized how invested he was in students at Central until that moment. You could tell that really meant a lot to him and how much he had invested in me.”

It was at that convention where Brown also saw how highly regarded Weller was by national collegiate leaders. She said that only over time did most athletes appreciate Weller’s significance on intercollegiate athletics nationally.

“I just remember him being a warm person who I felt like knew me immediately,” she said. “He had an easy presence about him. I didn’t know about all of his grand achievements or that he was a pillar of Division III. He got to know my parents and his wife did, too. They were just such lovely, down-to-earth people.”

Weller, who played football at Hope, remained active throughout his life. He frequently played racquetball as president and even wind-surfed in retirement. Students often saw him cruising around campus on a motorcycle, with his tie flapping in the breeze.

“We thought that was kind of cool,” McMartin said.

Olson’s son Tyler ’18 played football at Central and daughter Kylie ’19 played softball.

“They both knew who he was and had a deep respect for him,” Olson said. “Kylie knew that a lot of what we got to experience as female student-athletes in Division III was because of him.”

Wares and other coaches try to ensure that current athletes appreciate Weller and his impact.

“It’s hard to even get people to understand the significance that he had,” Wares said. “I really don’t think we could do what we have done in our softball program without the support that he gave, and I’m not talking about monetary support. He became a really good friend. He didn’t felt like he was a president, he just felt like one of us. And that’s what I share with the players.

“Without him, and Coach Schipper and (former NCAA Council member) Marjorie Giles, we don’t have what we have today and I’m afraid if we don’t keep talking about it, we’ll take that for granted.”

Similarly, Brown thinks about the void Weller leaves.

“Are we going to keep producing people like that?,” Brown said. “These good ones who are just these grand people who do big things in a real humble way.

“Who are they out there? Are we making these people in our world? You feel really grateful that you got to meet and connect with someone like that because that rubs off on you a little bit.”

Van Kley is just glad he got to know this grand one.

“There will never be another Dr. Weller,” he said. “He is as impressive of a leader as I’ve ever met, but an even better friend.”

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