History Spotlight: King’s Athletic Legacy Spans USA
The men's basketball team at King's took the College's athletic program to its zenith, in a way, when they won the NCCAA Division 1 championship in 1985. But there's another way in which the athletic program at King's was more significant still.
On Friday, February 5, 2016, the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (CACC) honored its founder and former King’s athletic director, Coach Norm Wilhelmi, as one of six inaugural members of its Hall of Fame. Coach Wilhelmi served at The King’s College from 1954 to 1973. In 1961, he organized a meeting that led to the creation of the CACC. He was also influential in founding the East Coast Christian College All-Sports Tournament, the National Christian College Physical Education Association (NCCPEA), the National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA) and the Annual Christian College Baseball Tournament, out of which a baseball clinic ministry grew to teach baseball skills and introduce Jesus to German young people. For many years, Coach Wilhelmi hosted a national radio program that used sports stories to tell listeners about Christian colleges and mission sports programs. Coach Wilhelmi passed away on October 24, 2012, at 86 years old.
Coach Wilhelmi’s award inspired us to take a look at the importance of athletics at King’s over the years. Percy Crawford’s son Dan, in his book A Thirst for Souls, credits the strong emphasis on athletics and other extracurricular activities with building an atmosphere of congeniality and “sweetness” in student life at King’s: “Competitive sports were emphasized from the beginning, largely because Percy believed strongly that young people who opted for Christ were not sissies or social misfits, but red-blooded American men and women…One milestone in the athletic program was the beginning of a series of basketball games with Wheaton College.” [Percy was consciously modeling King’s after Wheaton based on his own positive experience of faith and learning being integrated well there.] Another was when King’s basketball star George Dempsey, a 1952 graduate, was signed by the Philadelphia Warriors of the National Basketball Association.”
The first King’s students were elated when their fledgling basketball team beat Wheaton’s much more established one within the college’s first four years. Much later, the college distinguished itself again when its men’s soccer team won the NCCAA Division 1 championship in 1985. The NCCAA website also records many King’s students who received individual awards: alumnus Bill Robinson won the organization’s highest student honor, the Pete Maravich Award, in 1991.
The legacy of the athletic program at King’s also includes achievements more like Norm Wilhelmi’s. If the maxim is true that individuals start things and institutions preserve them, King’s alumni have preserved the lessons they learned as Purple Knights in high schools and universities across the country, where many found positions as high school and collegiate athletic directors and coaches, and in sports ministries that they started themselves. Last year, King’s honored Larry Moody (’70) as its 2015 Alumnus of the Year. Mr. Moody is involved with both professional athletes and Christian apologetics, serving as the President of Search Ministries and as Chaplain to the PGA Tour.
When King’s first started back up in NYC, the College did not emphasize athletics quite as strongly as Percy did in the very beginning. However, in 2009, the college hired Sean Horan, previously head coach of the Columbia University Rugby Football Club, as athletic director. Today, King’s offers men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s soccer, women’s volleyball, cross country, golf, and various recreational and club sports. If you’d like to learn more about the culture of athletics at King’s, or just find out how students in Manhattan find space to do all these things, check out our athletics page.