Women’s basketball welcomes coach

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Last week, the Hillsdale Athletic Department announced the hiring of Todd Mitmesser as the new women’s basketball head coach for the 2015-2016 season. Mitmesser is coaching his first practices with the Chargers this week.
After 24 years of coaching three different collegiate programs across the country, Mitmesser has found himself coaching a half hour from his hometown: Coldwater, Michigan.
Mitmesser said that because he grew up nearby, he knew of Hillsdale. When he saw the job opening, he began researching the details.
“The more I looked into the job, the more I felt that it was a great opportunity because it was a perfect fit for my family and for me professionally as well,” he said. “I was really excited when I heard that Mr. Brubacher was bringing me out for an interview.”
Mitmesser said that after watching film he was happy to see a variety of different skills in the team.
“There’s a lot of talent here,” Mitmesser said. “We have players that can do a multitude of things offensively and I think that in our first workout it was evident that they are eager to learn the style. The combination of those two things can really lead to success for the program.”
Hillsdale’s players were equally excited to meet their new coach. Junior Ashlyn Landherr said she thinks he is a good fit for Hillsdale.
“We all had a good first impression of Coach Mitmesser. When we interviewed him, he was very positive and excited about the opportunity to be at Hillsdale,” she said. “He seemed very passionate about making his players better, but also understood the importance of academics and our difficult schedules.”
Mitmesser said he plans to concentrate on returning to the fundamentals before teaching his players to run a bunch of plays.
“Coach Mitmesser will make us a more well-rounded team. I’m excited about improving our skills as individuals as well as the potential for our team to be great next year,” Landherr said.
Mitmesser coached high school teams while studying history education at Berea College, a liberal arts school in Kentucky.
“I just love the game. You put the ball in the basket a couple times and it keeps you coming back,” Mitmesser said. “I played basketball in high school, from a very young age actually, and I probably wasn’t talented enough to play at the collegiate level, so I started coaching.”
In five years, Mitmesser coached freshman and junior varsity basketball, softball, and boys and girls track at the local high school. Mitmesser and his wife then moved to Nebraska where he taught and coached basketball at three different high schools. Mitmesser landed a varsity coaching job at Lincoln East High School and the Nebraska Coaches Association named him the “Coach of the Year” in 2004.
It was after his six successful seasons in Lincoln that Mitmesser gained the assistant coaching job at the University of Evansville with head coach Tricia Cullop.
“I am very happy to have worked with somebody like Coach Cullop for seven years,” Mitmesser said. “I learned so much and we had some success at both of those schools.”
In his three seasons at Evansville, Mitmesser helped the team win a conference championship in 2008. Mitmesser then coached for another four years with Cullop at the University of Toledo where his team won three division titles and the Women’s National Invitation Tournament championship in 2011.
“It was really fun from a professional standpoint to be a part of that success,” Mitmesser said. “It was very rewarding to see the players achieve their goals. It was an experience that you just don’t get to go through very often.”
Mitmesser said that seeing his players develop and succeed is his favorite part of coaching.
Mitmesser then coached at Stony Brook University for two seasons. When the head coach, Beth O’Doyle, was offered the head-coaching job at Virginia Commonwealth University, Mitmesser decided to stay in Long Island, taking a year off to coach his children.
Mitmesser and his wife Susan have two children: Marian, 9, and Edward, 7. He said that his family was excited to move to Michigan where they would be closer to his parents.