From humble Q-C beginnings to Iowa State, Hall of Fame inductee Fennelly enjoys ride
When the season ended, Bill Fennelly asked for just one thing from a shorthanded Iowa State women’s basketball team.
“He told us not to cry because it was over, but to smile because it happened,” guard Heather Ezell said, recalling the comments of a coach who has led the Cyclones to unparalleled heights during his 13 seasons on the bench at Iowa State.
As he encouraged a team that overcame the loss of two inside starters to reach the semifinals of the Big 12 Tournament and reach the NCAA field for the ninth time in 12 years, Fennelly appreciates the journey.
The Davenport native always has and always will.
“Longevity and continuity don’t happen very often in the business I’m in, but I’ve been blessed for 30 years now to be able to get up in the morning and go to a job I love,” Fennelly said. “At every stop along the way, that’s been the case. I’m one of the lucky ones.’’
Fennelly, one of the three individuals being inducted into the Quad-City Sports Hall of Fame during the Quad-City Times Salute to Sports on April 30, said strong roots have shaped his career.
“The people I’ve been around, the people I’ve learned from, they’re the reason our teams have been able to accomplish what they’ve accomplished,’’ Fennelly said.
“I was never a great athlete. I was like a lot of kids growing up. I liked sports and wanted to be on a team and play the game. Fortunately, I was able to learn from a couple of really good coaches in Dave Wessel and J.D. Rios at Davenport West where I was a very average player on teams that had plenty of better players.”
That didn’t prevent Fennelly from learning.
The way Wessel and Rios prepared their teams on a daily basis, both in terms of preparing for the next opponent and preparing for growth over the course of the season, form the foundation of the way Fennelly prepares his team today.
“And our scouting reports were as detailed as a lot of college teams would love to have. I learned a lot during that time,” Fennelly said.
Fennelly initially intended to pursue a career as an attorney, saying that his father, current Scott County Treasurer Bill Fennelly, once told him that one day he could look forward to having a big corner office.
“I’ve got the big corner office, but I don’t have the law degree,’’ Fennelly said. “Coaching was just something I had to pursue, and the college level was where I wanted to be.”
He worked as a volunteer assistant for the women’s team as a student at St. Ambrose under coach Bob Duax. It was there he met Bob Spencer, whose women’s program at William Penn in Oskaloosa, Iowa, was a national powerhouse.
That came at a time when Fennelly was attempting to figure out his future. Between part-time gigs patching potholes for the City of Davenport and working on a crew that repaired sewers — a job skill he said he has “a real appreciation for to this day’’ — Fennelly decided to get serious about his education and packed his bags for William Penn.
“I figured if things didn’t work out I could always come home and join my brother tending bar at the (family-owned) Circle Tap,” Fennelly said.
Instead, things worked out and Fennelly spent 10 years working and learning from Spencer, splitting time evenly between William Penn and Fresno State.
“When you talk about real pioneers in the college women’s game, Bob Spencer was one of them. He taught me a lot about recruiting, building a team and a program and about appreciating the people around you,” Fennelly said. “I’ve never forgotten that.”
After leaving Fresno State, Fennelly worked as an assistant coach at Notre Dame from 1986 to 1988 before earning his first head coaching opportunity at Toledo.
He put together six 20-win seasons at the Mid-American Conference school where he worked until making the move to Iowa State in 1995.
Fennelly took over a program that had only five winning seasons in its 22-year history, a rebuilding job he took a pay cut to accept and turned down four times before finally agreeing to become the Cyclones’ head coach.
“My sons were in fifth and first grade at the time and for my wife, Deb, and I, we knew there was no better place to raise our kids than in Iowa. That, along with the commitment that I sensed from the administration here led me to believe that there were unlimited possibilities here,” Fennelly said.
As has been the case at other stops along the way in his career, success followed.
Iowa State has made 11 postseason appearances, including a 1999 NCAA Elite Eight berth, two additional Sweet 16 appearances in NCAA play and a semifinal berth in the 2004 WNIT.
During his tenure, ISU has won the only conference championships in the program’s history, winning back-to-back Big 12 conference tournament titles in 2000 and 2001 and sharing the regular-season championship in 2000.
Illinois State coach Robin Pingeton, an assistant at Iowa State from 2000 to ’03, said Fennelly’s personality helps him succeed.
“He’s very driven, very intense, but his family — and his players and staff are part of that family — is the most important thing in his life,” Pingeton said.
“There’s a great balance in his life, and what he teaches is so much bigger than wins or losses. He’s a coach who teaches life’s lessons and those of us who have gone on to other opportunities, we understand the value of that because of the time we spent working with coach Fennelly.”
The dean of Big 12 coaches was awarded a “lifetime contract’’ in 2007, an extension that will allow Fennelly to complete his career at Iowa State. The 12-year contract will keep Fennelly on the Cyclones bench until he is 62 years old.
“This is the place I want to complete my career, and I feel fortunate that (ISU president Gregory) Geoffroy and (director of athletics) Jamie Pollard feel the same way. We’ve tried to build and run our program the right way and to be able to continue that well into the future is great,” Fennelly said.
“The neat thing about it to me is that my family and my wife’s family have been able to be a part of all of it, too. We’ve come a long way.”
Fennelly never forgets that.
He keeps copies of two box scores among mementos in his office. One is from his first game at Iowa State, showing an attendance figure of 300.
The other is from a game in 2000 when an NCAA first-round record crowd of 13,617 was on hand at Hilton Coliseum to watch the Cyclones defeat St. Francis.
“Our fans, our players, the coaches and administrators here, they’ve made this program what it is and they are like family,’’ Fennelly said. “That’s why I know I’m one of the lucky ones.”
Bill Fennelly timeline
1957: Born May 14, 1957 in Davenport
1975: Graduates from Davenport West
1976: Works as a volunteer assistant coach at St. Ambrose College, Davenport
1979: Continues working as a volunteer assistant at William Penn College, Oskaloosa, Iowa, where he graduates with a BA in Business Administration and Economics
1981: Leaves William Penn, where he was working as an assistant on a staff headed by Bob Spencer, following Spencer to Fresno State, where he worked as an assistant until 1986
1986: Left Fresno State to become an assistant coach at Notre Dame
1988: Accepted a head coaching position at Toledo, where his teams posted a combined 166-53 record, had six 20-win seasons. Coached the Rockets to three NCAA berths as well as second-, third- and fifth-place finishes in the WNIT
1995: Named the sixth head coach in Iowa State history on July 10, taking over a program which had just five winning seasons in its
22-year history
1996: In his first season, Fennelly’s team records the biggest turnaround in ISU women’s basketball history, going from 8-19 to 17-10
1997: Iowa State plays in the NCAA Tournament for the first time ever
1999: ISU reaches the Elite Eight in NCAA play, following a Sweet 16 win over Connecticut
2000: The Cyclones post the best record in school history, going 27-6 while winning the school’s first-ever conference regular-season and postseason tournament championships.
2001: Iowa State again finishes
27-6 and reached the Sweet 16 in the NCAA field for the third straight year. ISU won its second straight Big 12 tourney title.
2002: The Cyclones reach the NCAA tourney for the sixth straight year while going 24-9
2004: ISU enjoyed the first sellout in the program’s history, attracting 14,092 to a WNIT game against St. Joseph’s. The season also included Iowa State’s first-ever win over a top-ranked team, a victory over Texas Tech
2005: Picked sixth in Big 12 preseason polls, the Cyclones finished two games out of first and used a 15-0 record at Hilton Coliseum to return to NCAA play
2007: Coached ISU to the second round of the NCAA tourney and a spot in the Big 12 tourney title game during a 26-9 season
2008: Inducted into the Quad-City Sports Hall of Fame after leading ISU to the round of 32 in NCAA play despite losing two frontline starters to season-ending injuries.
Steve Batterson can be contacted at (563) 383-2290 or sbatterson@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.