Joining head football coach Carlin Carpenter’s staff as a strength and conditioning coach in 1988 in a voluntary capacity, Denny Phillips ’79 was promoted to assistant coach the following year. He dedicated 25 years to Beavers football and completed his final season in 2013 as the defensive backs coach. He also served as the special teams coordinator.
Phillips was the defensive backs and strength and conditioning coach when the team shared the HCAC championship in 2000, the only time Beavers football accomplished this in school history. He was previously inducted into the Hall of Fame with the 2000 team.
In 1992, Phillips began coaching for Bluffton’s track and field team and served as head coach through the 1998 season. He led the Beavers to three AMC championships in his first four years as coach.
A 1979 graduate of Bluffton in health, physical education and recreation, Phillips was a four-year member of Bluffton’s men’s basketball team and served as co-captain in 1979. During his Bluffton coaching tenure, he was also a full-time teacher at Leipsic and Bluffton Elementary schools. He also coached football and track at the high school level. A resident of the Village of Bluffton, he coached many youth teams as well and is married to Kaye (Closson ’80) Phillips. They are parents to Adam (Sarah Hounshell ’12) Phillips ’10 and Justin Phillips and have a grandson.
Denny Phillips was inducted in the Bluffton University Athletics Hall of Fame in 2022 for his coaching achievements.
onship in the Hoosier Buckeye Collegiate Conference.
Zickafoose, a graduate of South Adams High School in Berne, Ind., earned two letters in basketball, three in tennis and four in volleyball at Bluffton. She captained the volleyball team her final two years.
also coached volleyball for several years at the junior high and assistant varsity levels. Two of her Bluffton tennis players qualified for and played in the national tournament in 1984.
Snyder coached the Bluffton men’s basketball team for 14 years—the fourth-longest men’s hoops tenure—while recording, at the time, the most wins and best percentage of anyone who had coached more than three years.
) Bareiter was a four-year letter winner in volleyball, basketball and softball, and earned the Kathryn Little Award as the outstanding senior female athlete in 1983.
He was undefeated in regular-season play during his college career, with his only loss in the quarterfinals of the NAIA national tournament. He went on to win the Lima city singles and doubles titles several times in the 1970s.
A graduate of Shaker Heights High School near Cleveland, where he lettered in football and basketball and was an all-league standout, Collier was urged to attend Bluffton by another Shaker Heights student, Henry Freeman. He became a four-year football letter winner at Bluffton, earning Hoosier-Buckeye Collegiate Conference and NAIA District 22 honors twice. He also was an honorable mention All-American, played in
With more victories than any coach in Bluffton history, Kim Fischer took her place in the Athletics Hall of Fame just one year after her departure from campus.
ball teams of the early 1970s. In 1972, the four-year letterman helped lead the Beavers to a conference championship and was named first-team all-NAIA District 22. He also lettered one year each in basketball and baseball. A high school coach from 1973-87, he returned to Bluffton as offensive line coach from 1988-2006 and is now the Beavers’ running backs coach and director of academic support. He has been an adjunct instructor at Bluffton as well.
education from Bluffton and, in 1983, a master’s degree in educational administration from the University of Dayton. He and his wife Melanie live in Ottawa, where he also taught at Ottawa-Glandorf High School from 1979-2005 and was athletic director for three years.