Chadron State College Athletics

Nancy was a member of the first volleyball, softball and women’s basketball teams at CSC in the early 1970s. She grew up on a ranch in the Wood Lake area east of Valentine and remembers “about wearing out the boards on our barn” while throwing a volleyball or a softball against them while she was in high school and during the summers while she was in college.
She was the starting setter on three Chadron State volleyball teams that had a cumulative record of 41-8. During her sophomore year in 1972, the Eagles won the state championship by defeating the University of Nebraska-Lincoln along the way. However, she remembers that beating Kearney State seemed like an even bigger victory at the time.  The Eagles handed UNL its first defeat in 1974 during a tournament in mid-October.
She was accorded the team’s outstanding player award in 1973 and shared the honor with Carol Bachmann the following year. She believes she was the team’s leading server all three years.
Nancy played second base for the softball team. A highlight was starting a triple play by catching a line drive, tagging a runner who was running from first and then flipping the ball to shortstop Kathy Runyan, who stepped on second base to retire that runner.
Basketball was a challenge, because none of the Eagles had played it before, Newman remembers. “We didn’t even know what double-dribble was when we started,” she said.
Nancy has been director of the Student Health and Wellness Center at Nebraska Wesleyan University since 1985.