Q-C Sports Hall of Fame: 'Sometimes madman' Borcherding led Augie to great heights
In a 1973 feature story on the dominant run of the Augustana College men’s basketball team, Sports Illustrated’s Harold Peterson wrote the following line:
“Orchestrating all this has been a reddish blond, sometimes madman named Jim Borcherding, an Eric the Red reincarnated.”
Sometimes mad but always in control, Borcherding, like the great Norwegian explorer a thousand years before him, led the Vikings into uncharted waters. And for 15 years he sailed the ship like no one else before or since, winning six College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin championships, making 11 appearances in the postseason and four times finishing in the top three in the nation.
He took a program that, in 68 years before his arrival in 1969, had just six winning seasons and one league title to its name and turned it into a national power. Ten times he won 20 or more games; 13 straight seasons his teams were either No. 1 or 2 in the CCIW, which was perhaps the best small-college conference in the country in that era.
In 15 seasons, Borcherding, who next Wednesday will be inducted into the Quad-City Sports Hall of Fame, collected 314 wins against only 99 losses before retiring from coaching after the 1983-84 season at the age of 44.
Of course, if you ask him, he didn’t do any of it.
“The No. 1 thing that always impressed me about Borch is that I never, ever heard him use the pronouns I, me or my,” said Augustana sports information director Dave Wrath, who was at Augie as a student from 1976-80 before taking over as the sports information director in ’81.
“He always talked about we, us or our. He was a complete team guy from the get-go. He always, always preached team. He never took any credit.”
That remains the case today.
“I’m really humbled,” Borcherding, 68, said of his Hall induction. “I wish I could take a piece of that award and pass it out to every player we had in 15 years at Augustana. It truly was a ‘we’ thing. My name, I’m sure, will be on that plaque, but those guys deserve it as much as I do.”
‘Gotta have the ponies’
Chalk it up to timing that Borcherding’s magnetic personality landed on the bench at Augustana the same time horses like John Laing, Bruce Hamming and Mark Brooks were on the floor.
“Any coach who tells you you can win consistently without good players is blowing wind,” Borcherding said. “You gotta have the ponies.”
Borcherding had them from the start, and he corralled them, molded them into a cohesive unit, one that put team before self and winning above all.
After five years in the high school ranks and one season as a graduate assistant to Ralph Miller at the University of Iowa, Borcherding had been hired in 1968 as the Vikings head baseball coach, an assistant football coach and an assistant to basketball coach Armin Pipho. After one season, though, Pipho left Augie to pursue a doctorate degree, opening the door for Borcherding, then 29, to take over.
It didn’t take long.
With Laing and Hamming dominating the front line, the Vikings posted their first winning season in six years, finishing third in the CCIW. The next season, they won 20 games and the conference championship and reached the second round of the NCAA College Division Tournament.
“He was very good at molding the talent that he had and instilling the confidence in us that we could be successful at the conference level, the regional level and then the national level, too,” said Brooks, now the athletic director at Bettendorf High School, who played at Augie from 1969-73. “He made us believe we were good.”
Vikings reign
The 1970-71 season was only the beginning. It was the first of four straight CCIW championships under Borcherding and the spark for seven straight 20-win seasons. Augie also appeared in the postseason each of those years, finishing third at the NAIA National Tournament in 1973 and reaching back-to-back NCAA Division III Final Fours in 1975 and ’76.
In that seven-year run, the Vikings won 81 percent of their games, including a 93-18 mark in the conference, and lost only six times at home.
“We were always, always at our best in big games,” Wrath said. “The bigger the game, the better we were. And if it was a big game at home, that was pretty much an automatic.”
Borcherding just hated to lose — that’s what drove him, what made him so nervous on game nights that he sometimes couldn’t take it. It, too, was what ultimately forced him off the bench.
“He was a very competitive person,” said Rick Kestner, an All-American forward in 1977. “I think all great coaches and all great players, they want to beat you at checkers, tiddlywinks, hopscotch, whatever. It doesn’t matter.
“He was just a very competitive person. I think that was why he was so successful. He taught us all to share in his desire and passion for being successful.”
So close
One thing still haunts Jim Borcherding to this day.
It was 1981. He had, perhaps, his best team in all his years at Augustana. They could run and score with anyone in the country. And they did.
The Vikings hosted the Final Four that year and were in position to claim the program’s first national title, up two with seconds to play in the championship game. Then, a freshman from Potsdam State, a guy named Leroy Witherspoon, made a 30-foot shot at the buzzer to send the game to overtime. Augustana lost, 67-65.
“I can take you right to the spot on the floor,” Borcherding said. “That one hurt.”
The 1980-81 season highlighted Borcherding’s second run of dominance at Augie. From 1980-83, the Vikings won two more conference championships and reached four straight NCAA Tournaments. Borcherding finished his 14th season with 300 wins.
Surely, he thought, there were many more to come.
Early exit
On Dec. 14, 1983, several games into the basketball season, the Augustana sports information department issued a release stating Borcherding would step down after the season.
He was only 44. The program was rolling.
Why?
“I was rushed to the hospital twice with chest pains, and right away you think heart,” Borcherding said. “It wasn’t the heart at all. It was nerves. My doctor told me, ‘Your body’s trying to tell you something. You better get out while you can.’ ”
The years of self-torment on game nights, the knots in his stomach and aches in his head, had taken a toll. He just couldn’t do it anymore, not on par with the standard he had set.
“There was a passion that burned, and I think when it was done it was done,” Wrath said. “He was an energetic guy, and he put an awful lot into it. I think it took its toll on him. But, boy, when he was going, he was as good as anybody in the country.”
There is regret.
Borcherding spent years working as a salesman and district manager for School Calendar Company, which produces posters for high school and college teams in the area, and now works with his son installing wireless security at airports and government buildings around the country.
None of it supplies the same rush of adrenaline he felt when he was around the game.
“It was a phenomenal ride,” Borcherding said. “I just wish that I would have had the opportunity to coach longer. That’s my big regret in life.
“I got out way too soon. I’d still be coaching. There’s no doubt about it. I miss it. I miss it immensely. I loved it.”
Lasting tradition
Borcherding still is a fixture at Augustana on game nights, though not as often as or in the form that he would like. Now, when his work schedule allows, he sits on a perch in the baseline stands and takes in the action. He has witnessed much of the recent resurrection of the program under ninth-year coach Grey Giovanine.
It’s still hard for him, though. He still gets nervous and fidgety. He gets so into the game. He still loves Augustana. It’s still the program he built, still the program he stayed at when he had offers from Division I schools.
Giovanine, whose Vikings have won three straight CCIW championships, is very much aware of his presence.
“He established Augustana as one of the premier small-college basketball programs in the country. That’s a great benchmark to have for a program,” Giovanine said. “If you come in some place that has never been successful and they don’t appreciate how much it can mean for the college and the community — here, there is an appreciation and a desire to replicate that success, because people remember that time very fondly.”
It was a great time to be a basketball fan in the Quad-Cities, a time when the Carver Center was filled to capacity — sometimes, well beyond — and that reddish blond, sometimes madman on the bench was more into it than any of the thousands in the bleachers. He was conducting a symphony, dancing wildly, sprinting from baseline to mid-court with fury, then back to the baseline again, faster, even, than the action on the floor.
He was the star of the show he directed. He just refused to bow for the ovation.
“He captured the whole community,” Wrath said. “It was a magical time. The place was packed, and everyone wanted to be a part of it. He just had that kind of personality. He was larger than life.”
The Borcherding File
Record at Augustana: 314-99 in 15 seasons (1969-84)
Record at home: 157-16
CCIW championships: 6
Postseason appearances: 11
Notable: When Borcherding was hired in 1969, Augustana had just six winning seasons in the history of its program. When he retired from coaching in 1984, Borcherding had the best winning percentage in the history of NCAA Division III. He still ranks third on that list behind Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan and Wooster’s Steve Moore.
Borcherding Timeline
Nov. 21, 1939 — Born in Sumner, Iowa
1958 — Graduated from Sumner High School
1962 — Graduated from Wartburg College, where he played basketball and baseball and won the Voecks Award for citizenship
1962-63 — Landed his first head coaching job as the varsity boys coach at Frost (Minn.) High School
1963-67 — Coached the varsity boys at Lake Mills (Iowa) High School for four seasons
1967-68 — Went back to school at the University of Iowa and was a graduate assistant under Ralph Miller
1968-69 — Served as top assistant at Augustana under coach Armin Pipho, also was the head baseball coach and assistant on the football staff
1969-70 — In his first season as head coach, led the Vikings to their first winning season in six years, finishing 15-9
1970-71 — Coached Augie to its second-ever 20-win season and first NCAA Tournament berth, reaching the second round, and won the first of four straight CCIW championships
1971-72 — Coached Augustana’s first All-American, John Laing
1972-73 — Guided the Vikings to a 29-2 record, a mark that still stands as the best in school history, and a third-place finish at the NAIA National Tournament
1974-75 — Reached the first of back-to-back NCAA Final Fours, finishing third
1975-76 — Turned in another third-place finish at the Final Four
1980-81 — Led the Vikings to a 25-6 record, the CCIW championship and another Final Four, reaching the championship game before losing to Potsdam State in overtime
1983-84 — Coached Augie to a 14-12 record in his final season and retired from coaching at the age of 44 with a career record of 314-99
Eric Page can be contacted at (563) 383-2277 or epage@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.