Former Grace College head basketball coach, Jim Kessler, will be honored by the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 2020, according to a story in yesterday’s Warsaw, Ind., Times-Union. A portion of the story appears below. Click here to read the complete article.
Indiana Basketball HOF Announces Class Of 2020
The Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame Board of Directors announces the 2020 Men’s Induction Class to be honored on March 25.
The recipient of this year’s Indiana Pacers Silver Medal award, which includes Hall of Fame induction, is former Grace College head coach Jim Kessler. The head men’s basketball coach at Grace for 42 years, his teams won 788 games, making him the 28th winningest men’s college basketball coach in America.
His teams had eighteen 20-win seasons, three 30-win seasons, won 10 conference championships, made nine NAIA National Tournament appearances, won the 1992 NAIA Division II National Championship and four times finished as NCCAA National runners-up.
Kessler was named the 1992 NAIA National Coach of the Year, 1983 and 1992 NCCAA National Coach of the Year and received numerous Conference Coach of the Year honors. He is an inductee of the NAIA Hall of Fame, NCCAA Hall of Fame and an inaugural inductee in the Grace College Athletic Hall of Fame.
He has served as a court coach for USA Basketball, hosted a coaches clinic at the NCAA Final Four, led Grace on international missions trips to at least eight countries and has directed over 20,000 campers at the annual Lancer Basketball Camp.
Kessler is a 1966 graduate of Northwest H.S. in Hughesville, Missouri. He resides in Winona Lake.
Click here to read the complete article.