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On Nov. 17, 2009, Head Coach Denise Van De Walle reached an impressive milestone, posting her 500th career victory at Bowling Green State University with a win over rival Toledo in the Mid-American Conference Tournament. With a 500-342 record in 27 seasons at the helm, she is the dean of MAC coaches and the all-time winningest coach in league history. Van De Walle has built a program that ranks as one of the best in the MAC and Midwest. Ranking among the 30 winningest active coaches in Division I, she has led the Orange and Brown to a winning season in 18 of the last 23 years. She has 13 seasons with 20-plus wins and a 30-win campaign in 1992. On four occasions Van De Walle has been voted the MAC Coach of the Year, receiving outright honors in 1986 and 1989. She shared the award in both 1987 and 1992. Finishing just 13-20 during the 2009 season, the team may not have had the most impressive record in Van De Walle’s tenure, but she did arguably the best coaching job of her career. The Falcons lost their first six MAC matches and had a stretch of 11 consecutive losses at one point, but Van De Walle never allowed her team to give in. BGSU rebounded in a big way, going 5-5 in league play down the stretch, including wins over two teams that had defeated the Falcons earlier in the year. When the dust settled on the regular season, Van De Walle sat at 499 career wins and the team earned just a No. 11 seed for the MAC Tournament, forcing the Falcons to go on the road to face rival Toledo, another team that had beaten them earlier in the year, in the first round. In an epic five-set struggle, Bowling Green avenged the earlier defeat with a 26-24, 25-22, 20-25, 16-25, 15-12 win that gave Van De Walle her 500th career victory. Prior to 2009, the program had posted three consecutive 20-win seasons and a 37-11 MAC record during that stretch. The 2008 team went 25-9 overall and 12-4 in league play, winning championships in the Temple Invitational and the Marquette Challenge. The 2007 team went 21-10 and the 2006 squad finished 26-6, which included a 17-match winning streak and a trip to the MAC championship match. The team went 13-3 in conference play in 2006, the most wins for the program in MAC play since 1993, and followed that up with a 12-4 record in 2007. Van De Walle, whose tenure is the longest of any current head coach at Bowling Green, became just the third coach in the history of BGSU volleyball on June 30, 1983, and has experience coaching at the high school, college, national, and international levels. In May of 2001, Van De Walle was named President of the American Volleyball Coaches Association and has been very active in the AVCA during her Falcon tenure. In the fall of 2002, Van De Walle became the first coach to amass 350 career wins at a MAC school, reaching that plateau in a win over Marshall. In 2005, she picked up win number 400 with a 3-0 sweep over Chicago State. From 1999-01, Van De Walle led the team to three consecutive 20-win seasons, just the second time in school history – both under Van De Walle – that BGSU teams have accomplished that feat. The 1999 team went 21-12 and was the most improved team in the MAC, winning 10 more matches than the 1998 team’s 11-21 mark. The Falcons tripled their conference win total by going 12-6 and advancing to the tournament semifinals. Following that 1999 season, BGSU lost a strong senior class and was picked to finish fourth in the East Division. But the Falcons proceeded to go 21-9 and tie for the division title. The 2001 squad finished 21-8 and finished 12-6 in MAC play for the third straight year, finishing first in the division again. Van De Walle’s most successful stretch came from 1989-93 when she guided the Orange and Brown to five straight years of 20 or more wins. The team finished first in the MAC in 1989, 1991 and 1992 and was second in 1993. The 1989 team won the program’s initial MAC title, halting Western Michigan’s 98-match league winning streak and seven-year reign as league champion in the process. The team finished with a perfect 8-0 league mark, the only undefeated MAC season in program history. The 1990 team went 26-7 overall but that was only the start. BGSU went 59-13 over the next two seasons and 32-2 in MAC play, winning back-to-back conference titles. The 1991 team made the program’s first NCAA appearance and the Falcons finished the year ranked No. 19 in the country. The 1992 team set a school record for victories in a season by going 30-8 and the Falcons capped a spectacular fall campaign by finishing with a runner-up finish at the National Invitational Volleyball Championship – the highest ever by a MAC member. The 1993 team again advanced to the NIVC and finished third in its pool to go 20-11 overall. The Falcons finished second in the MAC in both regular season and tournament action. For all of the team’s on-court achievements, Van De Walle’s squads have perennially been one of the top teams off the court as well. She has had numerous regional Academic All-Americans, including Emily Manser, who was a member of the ESPN The Magazine/CoSIDA Academic All-American team in 2004 and 2005. BGSU volleyball is a ten-time recipient of the AVCA/Game Plan National Academic Award, including one season with the highest GPA in the nation. Van De Walle’s volleyball squads have recorded the highest team GPA on campus in six of the last ten years. Over the last 14 years, the Falcons have graduated 47 players from the volleyball program. No fewer than 37 of those players had a cumulative GPA of 3.00 or better. While her Falcon teams have had plenty of success, Van De Walle has also excelled at other places. A 1976 graduate of Ball State, Van De Walle began her coaching career at Northside High School in Muncie, Ind., where she led her team to an overall record of 54-9 during the 1977 and 1978 seasons. Her 1977 squad posted an impressive 29-1 record en route to the state championship while her 1978 team produced a 25-8 slate that included sectional and regional titles. For her efforts, Van De Walle was named Coach of the Year by the Indiana High School Athletic Association following the 1978 campaign. She then became a graduate assistant at her alma mater in 1979, coaching the junior varsity team while assisting with the varsity. In 1980, Van De Walle returned to Northside and guided the team to a sectional championship and a 25-3 record. That year, she also coached the Michiana Volleyball Club that participated in the United States Volleyball Association Junior Nationals in California and the Junior Olympics in Illinois. In 1981, Van De Walle joined the program at Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo as an assistant coach and helped the Mustangs to a 41-8 record and a fifth-place finish in the NCAA Division I Championships. She went back to Ball State in 1982 as the assistant coach, and the Cardinals finished third in the MAC with a 33-12 overall record. Following that season she came to BGSU to begin her storied Falcon tenure. During the summer of 1983, Van De Walle was an assistant coach with the Athletes in Action volleyball team that toured the Far East with stops in Hong Kong, Japan, and China. She assisted the overall tour preparation in the areas of cultural, spiritual, and physical conditioning. She again accompanied the AIA team to the Far East in 1984, this time serving as head coach, returning home with a mark of 9-4. In 1993, Van De Walle coached at the U.S. Olympic Festival in San Antonio, Texas. That stint marked her second Festival coaching appearance in three years. At the 1991 games held in Los Angeles, Van De Walle guided the East to a bronze medal. In 1992, Van De Walle was to have coached the U.S. Junior National Women’s Volleyball Team at the North America, Central America, and Canada (NORCECA) World Championships in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, but, unfortunately, the U.S. could not participate. However, she was in charge of running the USVBA women’s senior elite camp in Colorado Springs, Colo., where she organized scrimmages between the senior groups and the junior national unit she was to have coached. Van De Walle also assisted women’s national team head coach Terry Liskevych in selecting the participants to the camp. BGSU’s Carey Amos participated in this camp. In 1995 and 1996, Van De Walle was named the head coach of the AIA volleyball teams which toured Bolivia and South Africa, respectively. The 1995 team finished with a 10-3 record while the 1996 squad posted an unblemished 8-0 mark. In the summer of 1998, Van De Walle was a part of the first-ever international mission of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. She was the only volleyball coach in a four-person group that traveled to Singapore. That group conducted clinics and spoke at various youth activities and church functions during the mission. Van De Walle returned to Singapore during the summer of 2000. Van De Walle was a setter at Ball State and served as team captain in 1975. She led the Cardinals to the 1973 Indiana State Championship and a 13th place finish at the AIAW nationals. A much-requested clinician and instructional speaker, Van De Walle has worked at volleyball camps throughout the nation. She also serves as a leader for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes huddle at BGSU and advisor to H2O. In fact, she was inducted in the Northwest Ohio chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes’ Hall of Champions in May of 2010, being honored in the inaugural class. The Falcon mentor has been a member of the NCAA Mideast Region volleyball committee while also serving as an alternate on the NCAA Division I National Committee in 1990. Van De Walle served on the AVCA Board of Directors from 1993-2000 as the Division I representative, but relinquished that role upon becoming President in May of 2001. She served on the board as Past-President the following year. Van De Walle also sat on the board of directors for USA Volleyball. She is in her fourth year as an AVCA Top-25 poll voter and additionally, Van De Walle led the USA Women’s National Sitting Volleyball Team to a bronze medal as an assistant coach in the 2004 Paralympic Games in Greece. Van De Walle helped guide the National Sitting Team in June of 2006 at the Triple World Championships in the Netherlands. With a sweep of Ukraine, the red, white and blue finished fifth. In the summer of 2007, Van De Walle and the National Sitting team ended second in the Asia-Oceanic Cup, finishing behind only China, the host of the event. In April of 2008, Van De Walle and the Women’s National Sitting Team finished third with a bronze medal at the first ever World Organization Volleyball for the Disabled Intercontinental Cup in Egypt. Van De Walle and Team USA competed in the 2008 Beijing Paralympics in September, returning home with a silver medal.