NWC to honor former athletes

The Northwestern College Red Raider Club will induct two alumni into its Athletic Hall of Fame and recognize its 2012 co-coaches of the year and Barnabas Award recipient on Saturday, Feb. 2. They will be honored at the Athletic Recognition Luncheon at 11 a.m. in the Vermeer Dining Room and at halftime of the men’s basketball game against Concordia University, which starts at 4 p.m. The game will also feature recognition of the 2003 national champion men’s basketball team.

Koury Kramer of Inwood, Iowa, and Corey Winterfeld of Sioux Center, Iowa, will bring the number of Hall of Famers to 98. Bill Francis of Hull, Iowa, and Chris Yaw of Orange City will receive Red Raider Club Coach of the Year honors. Tony Weiler of Winterset, Iowa, will receive the Barnabas Award.

Kramer, a 2001 Northwestern graduate, was a star in both football and baseball for the Raiders. A defensive back and return specialist, he was an NAIA first-team All-American in 1999 after recording five interceptions, returning three kicks for touchdowns, compiling 29 unassisted tackles and 11 assists, and forcing three fumbles. He was a first-team All-Nebraska-Iowa Athletic Conference honoree that year, receiving second-team recognition in 1998 and honorable mention in 1997.

In baseball, Kramer earned first-team all-conference honors all four years. He is third in Northwestern’s record books in home runs with 22, tied for third in runs with 146, fourth in doubles with 43, fourth in triples with 12, and fifth in RBIs with 121. The centerfielder and shortstop compiled a cumulative batting average of .340.

A 1996 graduate of West Lyon High School, Kramer won Northwestern’s Vander Stoep Athletic Award in 2000. He is an elementary teacher, head baseball coach and assistant football coach at West Lyon.

Winterfeld, who graduated from Northwestern in 2005, was a point guard who earned NAIA first-team All-American honors and Great Plains Athletic Conference Player of the Year honors as a senior. He averaged 13.4 points, 5.2 assists and 3.2 rebounds that year as the Raiders advanced to the Elite Eight. He was an all-conference performer as a junior, contributing 14.5 points and 5.1 assists, and earned all-national tourney recognition his sophomore year when Northwestern won the national title with a 33-2 record. He averaged 8.2 points and 4.05 assists that season. Ranked fifth on the school’s all-time assist record with 520, Winterfeld also scored 1,243 points during his Red Raider career. A 2001 graduate of Sioux Center High School, he now farms in his home community.

Francis, a 1988 Northwestern College graduate, led the Boyden-Hull High School boys’ basketball team to the Class 1A state championship with a 26-2 record last year and received state coach-of-the-year honors. The Comets also won the state title in 2003 and have had five other state tournament appearances under Francis’ leadership. In 19 seasons as a head coach, his teams have compiled a 326-139 record.

A 1983 graduate of Palmer High School, Francis was an All-American at Northwestern. He ranks as the Raiders’ sixth leading scorer with 1,866 points and still holds the record for most field goals in a season with 370 in 1986-87. A member of Northwestern’s Athletic Hall of Fame and the Iowa High School Athletic Association’s Basketball Hall of Fame, Francis serves as guidance counselor at Boyden-Hull.

Yaw, a 1992 alumnus, led Northwestern College’s women’s basketball team to the NAIA Div. II national championship with a 28-7 record last March in his first season as head coach. Yaw was named the NAIA Phyllis Holmes Coach of the Year and received the Iowa Basketball Coaches Association’s Paul Maaske Award. Two of Yaw’s players earned All-American honors, four were NAIA Scholar-Athletes, and Northwestern topped the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association’s academic honor roll with the highest team GPA. Yaw previously served as the top assistant for Northwestern’s program, which also won national titles in 2011, 2010 and 2008 and compiled a 200-41 record in his seven seasons on the staff.

Yaw served as a captain on the 1992 NAIA Div. II national runner-up squad. A 1988 graduate of Harris-Lake Park High School, he previously taught math and coached girls basketball in the MOC-Floyd Valley Community School District; served as the middle school principal in Spencer, Iowa; and was an assistant women’s basketball coach at Wayne State College.

Weiler, a 1976 graduate of Northwestern who is a math teacher and coach in the Winterset (Iowa) Community School District, will receive the Barnabas Award. It is bestowed upon Raiders who encouraged others to strive for their best performance athletically, academically and personally, and who used their sport as a way to bring others to a knowledge of Jesus Christ. A member of Northwestern’s Athletic Hall of Fame, Weiler was a three-year all-conference player in baseball who also competed on the Raiders’ basketball and cross country teams.  

A 1972 graduate of Remsen St. Mary’s High School, he received Northwestern’s Dunlop Sportsmanship Award in 1976.

The public is invited to attend the Athletic Recognition Luncheon. For more information, contact Karen Vander Pol in Northwestern’s athletic department, 712-707-7280 or karen@nwciowa.edu.