12-6 Book to Upload - UW-Whitewater Athletics

COACHING BIOGRAPHIES
Head Coach Lance Leipold
In four years of directing Warhawk football Lance Leipold has compiled a
70-3 mark. The wins include four consecutive Wisconsin Intercollegiate
Athletic Conference championships, four trips to the NCAA III playoffs --- all
ending in the Division III championship game, the Amos Alonzo Stagg
Bowl. Three national title trophies have come back on the plane from
Salem.
Leipold directed UW-W to a 14-1 record in 2007, less than a year after he
took over the reins from Bob Berezowitz, his coach during his playing days and the head coach
when Leipold got his start in coaching. That first season produced eight first team allconference
picks, six All-Americans, the national player of the year (Gagliardi Trophy) and the
D3 Rimington Trophy recipient. Leipold swept all of the Division III coach of the year honors.
UW-W rolled to a 13-2 mark in 2008, all the way to a runnerup finish in D3. Along the way six
Warhawks earned First Team All-WIAC recognition and six were accorded All-American honors,
including the D3football.com Defensive Player of the Year. There was no way of knowing that
the loss in the 2008 Stagg Bowl would be Whitewater’s last for a while – that “while,” a NCAA
(all divisions) leading thirty game win streak, covered the next two seasons. The 2009
campaign produced the school’s first 15-0 record, and another conference and national
championship. Seven All-Americans included the Fred Mitchell Award winner (as the top kicker
in Division II/III). The run continued through 2010, fifteen wins taking the streak to thirty games
without a loss. Six more All-Americans, including the D3 Offensive Player of the Year helped
Leipold collect another Coach of the Year honor.
Leipold, a quarterback for the Warhawks in the mid-1980’s and former Warhawk assistant
coach, was associate head coach and offensive coordinator for the University of Nebraska-
Omaha since 2004. He returned to head the UW-W football program in January 2007.
Leipold, out of Jefferson, played four years for the Warhawks (1983-1986). The 1984 team won
the WIAC title, and the teams he played on were a combined 20-10-2.
He is still second all-time in the Warhawk record books for career pass attempts (647), third in
yards (4,277), fifth in completions (303), and tied for ninth with 27 touchdowns.
He is also among the top ten in those same categories in the UW-W records for a single
season, all in his junior year in 1985. In a game against UW-River Falls in 1985 Leipold
completed 37-57 for 494 yards -- among the top 20 individual games in WIAC history. He was
the team MVP in 1986, and was elected to the UW-W Athletics Hall of Fame in 2003.
Leipold's coaching career began where he played, at UW-W. He coached quarterbacks in 1987
and wide receivers in 1988, helping both teams win WIAC (then WSUC) championships. After
one year at Doane College in Nebraska, he returned to UW-W in 1990 to coach and work on a
master's degree. He helped the Warhawks win another WIAC title while serving as Berezowitz's
offensive coordinator. Leipold moved on to the University of Wisconsin-Madison for the 1991,
'92 and '93 seasons, serving as a graduate assistant all three years, working with the offense.
The 1993 Badgers won the Big Ten and the Rose Bowl, going 10-1-1. His first stint at Division II
Nebraska-Omaha covered 1994-2000, where he was part of a staff that turned UNO from a 1-
10 team (1994) to North Central Conference champions in 1996, 1998 and 2000. He was
UNO's offensive coordinator in 2000. He moved to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2001,
serving as an administrative assistant the same year Cornhuskers played in the national
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