Indiana University Athletics
A Life in Sports Always Had a Good Ring to It for Inniger
7/1/2020 7:36:00 AM | Men's Basketball
By his own admission, Erv Inniger isn't a jewelry person.
Less is more – means more - to the IU basketball alum.
His most important piece is his wedding ring. Shortly after his rookie year with the first-year ABA Minnesota Muskies' franchise in 1967-68, Inniger met Linda, they fell in love, and they've now been married 52 years.
His other piece of jewelry predates the wedding band by about 12 months. Worn on his left ring finger, it was earned thanks to an unforgettable and perhaps improbable basketball season that concluded with Inniger and the rest of the 1966-67 Hoosiers sitting atop the Big Ten as conference champions.
"I'm so proud that I had a chance to play on a Big Ten Championship team," says Inniger, a Berne, Ind., product who now lives in Fargo, N.D. "How many people get to do that? I wear that ring every day. It means an awful lot to me."
The value that Inniger places on that championship ring should not be taken lightly. After all, this is someone who has accomplished a whole lot during a lifetime in and around sports. From playing in the first two years of the ABA's existence to a record-setting 14-year run as a collegiate head coach to an equally impressive 19-year stint as a college administrator, Inniger has done it all, and perhaps a little more.
But before diving into the coaching and the fundraising and the on-again, off-again retirement, Inniger's story starts back home in Indiana.
FROM BERNE TO BLOOMINGTON
Inniger grew up in Berne, a tiny town in northeastern Indiana 35 miles southeast of Ft. Wayne. Today, Berne has a shade over 4,000 residents. In the mid-1960s it was perhaps half that size. Back then it was known for the furniture made by its large Amish population and, like many small Indiana towns, its passion for basketball.
During the 1960s, that passion for the sport was complemented by lots of success. From 1958-63 Berne won five sectional championships and two regionals and attracted the type of attention that rarely comes for a town its size.
Inniger was a big part of that success. After being a part of junior high school teams that went a perfect 67-0 over the course of three years, he anchored three high school teams that matched those 67 wins in the next three years against only 12 losses, with three sectional titles and a pair of regional crowns.
That on-the-court success helped Inniger get noticed, despite the tiny size of his home locale. Inniger had the opportunity to play in important state tournament games against big-time programs in front of important people – such as IU Coach Branch McCracken – which created opportunities he might not have otherwise gotten.
"When you have success, you get looked at," Inniger said. "That's when the recruiters came in. I had a chance to be seen because our high school team did so well. I saw kids I played against, even other kids in our county that were as good as me and maybe even better than me that never had a chance (to play in college), and that was because of the success we had."
As important as the team's success was, being from Berne didn't hurt, either. That's because there was one other thing that Berne was known for at the time – it was the hometown of Bob Dro.
To the residents of Berne, Dro was a legend. In the 1930s, Dro guided Berne H.S. to a berth in the 1935 state tournament quarterfinals and a pair of sectional titles. He went on to IU, where he made his varsity debut during McCracken's first season on the IU sidelines in 1938-39. He was a three-year starter in Bloomington – including on IU's 1940 NCAA Championship team – and helped the program to a 54-9 mark during his three seasons.
After his IU career concluded in 1941, Dro had abbreviated stints as a professional in both basketball and baseball and then served during World War II. After the war, Dro coached high school basketball at both Pendleton and Bluffton High Schools before returning to IU as an assistant athletic director in 1957.
With Dro on the IU Athletics staff, McCracken was very much in the know when Inniger was enjoying his own success at Berne in the early 1960s. Dro's presence at IU, meanwhile, erased any doubts – if there even were any - about where Inniger wanted to play in college.
"Our community, it was very Indiana oriented," said Inniger. "When I grew up as a kid that was the epitome of where you wanted to go – to Indiana University. You can talk about Notre Dame and Purdue and others, but to me, it was Indiana. That was where I wanted to go. It really was pretty simple."
So Inniger headed to Bloomington in the fall of 1963. A prep star in the same two sports that Dro had excelled in at Berne H.S. and during his IU days, Inniger planned to play basketball for McCracken and, with McCracken's approval, baseball for IU Coach Ernie Andres.
He did both, although there were some bumps on the road. A hard-throwing pitcher, Inniger threw out his arm as an IU junior. He played his final two years, but the injury derailed any hopes of a professional career.
"I always thought I'd play professional baseball, so that crushed me," said Inniger.
There was no such injury issue in basketball, but instead a coaching change. After a season on the freshman team (freshmen weren't allowed to play varsity during the era) and then a year as a reserve in 1964-65, Inniger and the rest of the team learned that McCracken was retiring. While Inniger was very happy that assistant coach Lou Watson was named as McCracken's replacement, it was still a change that he and his teammates had to endure.
"Playing the one year for Branch, honestly, what a thrill," Inniger said. "I have a couple books of his still to this day. I feel very honored to have played for him for one year."
Inniger saw his role expand during Watson's first year as head coach in 1965-66, but the Hoosiers struggled. In addition to McCracken's departure, All-Big Ten Hoosier twins Dick and Tom VanArsdale were also gone. Indiana dropped three one-point games during the season and just about every closely contested game on their schedule on their way to an 8-16 season and a last place finish in the Big Ten at 4-10.
But for everything that went wrong during Inniger's junior year, an equal amount went right during his senior campaign. Inniger saw his scoring output increase from 4.0 points/game as a junior to 13.5 as a senior. After starting league play 1-1 in 1967, Indiana won its next three games by a combined four points, then defeated Michigan State by five thanks in large part to 24 points from Inniger, and ultimately won five straight to move into first place in the Big Ten.
Indiana closed the season with back-to-back home wins against Michigan and Purdue to finish the year 10-4 in the Big Ten and in a first-place tie with Michigan State. In addition to the league title, Indiana earned the conference's only allotted NCAA Tournament bid due to a longer absence from the tournament than the Spartans.
"I think it was one of the very few times it's ever happened, to go from last to first," Inniger said. "We didn't have the talent that the Van Arsdales and (1965 captain Jon) McGlocklin did. But we had an unbelievable team that worked together with (Butch) Joyner and Bill Russell and Vernon Payne and the rest and we got a ring. That time stays with me."
The euphoria from the Big Ten Championship and IU's first NCAA Tournament appearance in a decade were met soon afterwards with a frightening reality. As the season came to a close, Inniger was all-but-certain that a dream he'd had since he was six years old – to play sports professionally – was over. While the arm injury derailed any chances of a Major League Baseball career, an upstart professional basketball league offered a glimpse of hope and ultimately a life-changing opportunity.
FROM IU TO THE ABA
The American Basketball Association (ABA) was founded in 1967 as an alternative to the National Basketball Association. The ABA was focused on offering a more appealing product to fans with a wide-open style of play that featured, among other things, a 30-second shot clock.
What it offered more than anything for Inniger and others, though, was an opportunity. He was selected in the sixth round by the Minnesota Muskies, during a draft that saw Minnesota also pick future Indiana Pacer legend Mel Daniels and future NBA coaching icon Phil Jackson, among others.
"My whole life changed right in front of me," Inniger said.
Inniger's debut season was a good one. He averaged 10.6 points and 4.3 rebounds per game on a team that went 50-28. He saw many familiar faces on the ABA circuit, including former Hoosier turned Indiana Pacer Jimmy Rayl.
But Inniger's promising professional start was largely derailed soon afterwards. With the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War at its peak, Inniger learned he had drawn a high draft number and ultimately received his papers to report to the Army while on his honeymoon. He got in the reserves, but he got out late and didn't have the chance to train the way he was accustomed.
While all of this was going on, the Minnesota franchise had moved to Miami. Inniger was with the Miami Floridians for the duration of the 1968-69 season, but was only able to play in 34 games and he decided to end his professional career after those two seasons.
But Inniger very much valued the chance to play professionally and remembers that time fondly.
"The level of play in the ABA was really good. You didn't have the experience of the guys in the NBA like Bill Russell and John Havlicek, but you're talking about Rick Barry coming into the (ABA), Dr. J (Julius Erving) came into the league. Connie Hawkins, who goes into the NBA when the leagues merge and he's a superstar," Inniger said. "So I got to play two years of pro ball, and it was an unbelievably good experience for me."
But now that it was over, Inniger had a question to answer – what's next?
The answer to that came courtesy of a trip to, of all things, a Minnesota Twins baseball game.
COLLEGE COACHING JOURNEY
Inniger was taking in a game by the local baseball franchise and, unbeknownst to him, was seated next to the athletic director at Golden Valley Lutheran Junior College. The pair struck up a conversation. Inniger said he was looking for a new path now that his playing days were over. The athletic director said he was looking for a new head basketball coach.
He asked Inniger to come in for an interview on the following Monday, Inniger landed the job, and his head coaching career was underway. His debut season included a .500 record with the junior college program, which left a bad taste in Inniger's mouth. So he decided to go back to his roots to turn the team's fortunes around.
"I didn't really like .500 – I wanted to win," Inniger said. "So I came back to Indiana and picked up two kids – ones from Kendallville, and one from Bluffton. I also brought in one from Illinois and we won the conference the next year."
Inniger enjoyed two more successful years at Golden Valley Lutheran before a new opportunity came at Augsburg University in Minneapolis. There, he compiled a 99-42 record in five years at the NAIA level and captured three MIAC conference championships and earned three trips to the NAIA Tournament.
That success led to his next opportunity, this time at the Division II level. Inniger was hired as the head men's basketball coach at North Dakota State, where he spent 14 years from 1978-92. During that time he had 13 straight winning seasons, won 20 or more games twice, and departed as the school's all-time winningest basketball coach at 244-150. Among his coaching highlights was a 1981 North Central Conference championship as well as the chance to coach one of his two sons, Bart, who spent five years with the program and was the captain of his final Bison basketball team.
"I loved the coaching, loved the competition," said Inniger. "It was a great experience, and I have great relationships with many of my players to this day."
TRANSITIONING TO ADMINSTRATION AND DIVISION 1
When his coaching career came to a close, though, he wasn't done with North Dakota State University. Quite to the contrary. When he decided to step down as the men's basketball coach, he was asked to stay on as the Senior Associate Athletic Director for Development. As significant as his accomplishments were as a coach, his greatest impact on the university likely came in that role.
When Inniger left the coaching profession, North Dakota State was at the NCAA Division II level. They were a dominant force at D-II in a number of sports, most notably football, where they had won eight national championships.
For all the success, many still perceived the university as something less than because it competed at the D-II level. That was true in not only athletics, but academics. That prompted North Dakota President Joseph Chapman to push for the university to make the jump to Division I, and to make that happen, he leaned on new athletic director Gene Taylor (now the athletic director at Kansas State) and Inniger.
The challenge was daunting, with the biggest obstacle being money. Among many other things, the scholarship needs were going to double, and the athletic department's budget would ultimately increase exponentially.
"Money was the hardest thing," Inniger said.
But there was more than just raising the money. There was also the five-year transition period before officially joining the D-I ranks. Designed to ease the financial burden on schools making the transition, it also prevents all of the school's programs from competing in national championship events during that period of time.
For a program with the success nationally that NDSU had, that was tough for many to handle. And that, ultimately, was another of the high hurdles that Inniger and others had to clear – convincing the local community and passionate fans that this was best for the long-term success of the university and athletic department.
"It was the toughest five years of my life, but also the five most rewarding years of my time at NDSU," Inniger said. "Those five years were so hard because you had people saying we'd never win again. We had others from our conference calling us saying 'what do you think you're doing, you think you're better than everyone else.'
"We didn't think that, but we knew what was going to happen. Division II was falling apart."
Ultimately, Inniger and NDSU raised the money, convinced its fan base, and set itself up for a new, brighter future. While in its transition period, the basketball program picked up a couple of huge, head turning wins when it won on the road at both Wisconsin and Marquette. The Bison beat No. 15 Wisconsin 62-55 in 2006, a win that ended the Badgers' 27-game homecourt non-conference win streak at the Kohl Center.
"You do something like that, you're on the market now," Inniger said. "We made national attention when we started doing some of those things."
That success has continued to the present day. The football program has won eight of the last nine Division I FCS national championships and has a 3,000 person waiting list for its season tickets. The men's basketball program has won four Summit League regular season championships, five postseason league crowns, and has earned berths into the NCAA Tournament four times. Other programs, including track and field, have enjoyed national level success as well.
"We believe we were ahead of our time, our vision of things, and I was so glad to be a part of that," Inniger said.
Inniger's work on that transition highlighted a highly-successful athletic administration career that officially ended in 2011. But he didn't remain sidelined for long. Inniger, who was first asked to serve on the Choice Bank's Board of Directors in 2008, joined the bank staff after his retirement from the athletic department and remained there until this past December.
Since then, he's also done some part-time consulting work for the Dakota Medical Foundation, where he worked with 20 area charities to help them streamline their activities. He wrapped that project up recently, although the Foundation just recently contacted him again to see about coming back to do some more work.
He's not sure if he'll do that again or not, but it's a good bet he'll be doing some before long.
"I'm not real lazy," Inniger said. "My wife thinks I should stay home more."
Despite the commitments, the Innigers do make time to see their sons and five grandchildren regularly. He said they saw one grandson play 15 games this year in Minneapolis, and also saw another grandson play 15 more in northern Minnesota. Three of their grandchildren are currently in college, including one, Ben, who played alongside current Hoosier basketball player Race Thompson at Minneapolis' Armstrong High School.
It all keeps him busy, but that's something that Inniger has become accustomed to over the course of his 75 years.
Appreciative as well.
"All I ever wanted to do since I was six years old is play and be around sports," said Inniger. "With all I've been able to do I've been truly blessed."
Less is more – means more - to the IU basketball alum.
His most important piece is his wedding ring. Shortly after his rookie year with the first-year ABA Minnesota Muskies' franchise in 1967-68, Inniger met Linda, they fell in love, and they've now been married 52 years.
His other piece of jewelry predates the wedding band by about 12 months. Worn on his left ring finger, it was earned thanks to an unforgettable and perhaps improbable basketball season that concluded with Inniger and the rest of the 1966-67 Hoosiers sitting atop the Big Ten as conference champions.
"I'm so proud that I had a chance to play on a Big Ten Championship team," says Inniger, a Berne, Ind., product who now lives in Fargo, N.D. "How many people get to do that? I wear that ring every day. It means an awful lot to me."
The value that Inniger places on that championship ring should not be taken lightly. After all, this is someone who has accomplished a whole lot during a lifetime in and around sports. From playing in the first two years of the ABA's existence to a record-setting 14-year run as a collegiate head coach to an equally impressive 19-year stint as a college administrator, Inniger has done it all, and perhaps a little more.
But before diving into the coaching and the fundraising and the on-again, off-again retirement, Inniger's story starts back home in Indiana.
FROM BERNE TO BLOOMINGTON
Inniger grew up in Berne, a tiny town in northeastern Indiana 35 miles southeast of Ft. Wayne. Today, Berne has a shade over 4,000 residents. In the mid-1960s it was perhaps half that size. Back then it was known for the furniture made by its large Amish population and, like many small Indiana towns, its passion for basketball.
During the 1960s, that passion for the sport was complemented by lots of success. From 1958-63 Berne won five sectional championships and two regionals and attracted the type of attention that rarely comes for a town its size.
Inniger was a big part of that success. After being a part of junior high school teams that went a perfect 67-0 over the course of three years, he anchored three high school teams that matched those 67 wins in the next three years against only 12 losses, with three sectional titles and a pair of regional crowns.
That on-the-court success helped Inniger get noticed, despite the tiny size of his home locale. Inniger had the opportunity to play in important state tournament games against big-time programs in front of important people – such as IU Coach Branch McCracken – which created opportunities he might not have otherwise gotten.
"When you have success, you get looked at," Inniger said. "That's when the recruiters came in. I had a chance to be seen because our high school team did so well. I saw kids I played against, even other kids in our county that were as good as me and maybe even better than me that never had a chance (to play in college), and that was because of the success we had."
As important as the team's success was, being from Berne didn't hurt, either. That's because there was one other thing that Berne was known for at the time – it was the hometown of Bob Dro.
To the residents of Berne, Dro was a legend. In the 1930s, Dro guided Berne H.S. to a berth in the 1935 state tournament quarterfinals and a pair of sectional titles. He went on to IU, where he made his varsity debut during McCracken's first season on the IU sidelines in 1938-39. He was a three-year starter in Bloomington – including on IU's 1940 NCAA Championship team – and helped the program to a 54-9 mark during his three seasons.
After his IU career concluded in 1941, Dro had abbreviated stints as a professional in both basketball and baseball and then served during World War II. After the war, Dro coached high school basketball at both Pendleton and Bluffton High Schools before returning to IU as an assistant athletic director in 1957.
With Dro on the IU Athletics staff, McCracken was very much in the know when Inniger was enjoying his own success at Berne in the early 1960s. Dro's presence at IU, meanwhile, erased any doubts – if there even were any - about where Inniger wanted to play in college.
"Our community, it was very Indiana oriented," said Inniger. "When I grew up as a kid that was the epitome of where you wanted to go – to Indiana University. You can talk about Notre Dame and Purdue and others, but to me, it was Indiana. That was where I wanted to go. It really was pretty simple."
So Inniger headed to Bloomington in the fall of 1963. A prep star in the same two sports that Dro had excelled in at Berne H.S. and during his IU days, Inniger planned to play basketball for McCracken and, with McCracken's approval, baseball for IU Coach Ernie Andres.
He did both, although there were some bumps on the road. A hard-throwing pitcher, Inniger threw out his arm as an IU junior. He played his final two years, but the injury derailed any hopes of a professional career.
"I always thought I'd play professional baseball, so that crushed me," said Inniger.
There was no such injury issue in basketball, but instead a coaching change. After a season on the freshman team (freshmen weren't allowed to play varsity during the era) and then a year as a reserve in 1964-65, Inniger and the rest of the team learned that McCracken was retiring. While Inniger was very happy that assistant coach Lou Watson was named as McCracken's replacement, it was still a change that he and his teammates had to endure.
"Playing the one year for Branch, honestly, what a thrill," Inniger said. "I have a couple books of his still to this day. I feel very honored to have played for him for one year."
Inniger saw his role expand during Watson's first year as head coach in 1965-66, but the Hoosiers struggled. In addition to McCracken's departure, All-Big Ten Hoosier twins Dick and Tom VanArsdale were also gone. Indiana dropped three one-point games during the season and just about every closely contested game on their schedule on their way to an 8-16 season and a last place finish in the Big Ten at 4-10.
But for everything that went wrong during Inniger's junior year, an equal amount went right during his senior campaign. Inniger saw his scoring output increase from 4.0 points/game as a junior to 13.5 as a senior. After starting league play 1-1 in 1967, Indiana won its next three games by a combined four points, then defeated Michigan State by five thanks in large part to 24 points from Inniger, and ultimately won five straight to move into first place in the Big Ten.
Indiana closed the season with back-to-back home wins against Michigan and Purdue to finish the year 10-4 in the Big Ten and in a first-place tie with Michigan State. In addition to the league title, Indiana earned the conference's only allotted NCAA Tournament bid due to a longer absence from the tournament than the Spartans.
"I think it was one of the very few times it's ever happened, to go from last to first," Inniger said. "We didn't have the talent that the Van Arsdales and (1965 captain Jon) McGlocklin did. But we had an unbelievable team that worked together with (Butch) Joyner and Bill Russell and Vernon Payne and the rest and we got a ring. That time stays with me."
The euphoria from the Big Ten Championship and IU's first NCAA Tournament appearance in a decade were met soon afterwards with a frightening reality. As the season came to a close, Inniger was all-but-certain that a dream he'd had since he was six years old – to play sports professionally – was over. While the arm injury derailed any chances of a Major League Baseball career, an upstart professional basketball league offered a glimpse of hope and ultimately a life-changing opportunity.
FROM IU TO THE ABA
The American Basketball Association (ABA) was founded in 1967 as an alternative to the National Basketball Association. The ABA was focused on offering a more appealing product to fans with a wide-open style of play that featured, among other things, a 30-second shot clock.
What it offered more than anything for Inniger and others, though, was an opportunity. He was selected in the sixth round by the Minnesota Muskies, during a draft that saw Minnesota also pick future Indiana Pacer legend Mel Daniels and future NBA coaching icon Phil Jackson, among others.
"My whole life changed right in front of me," Inniger said.
Inniger's debut season was a good one. He averaged 10.6 points and 4.3 rebounds per game on a team that went 50-28. He saw many familiar faces on the ABA circuit, including former Hoosier turned Indiana Pacer Jimmy Rayl.
But Inniger's promising professional start was largely derailed soon afterwards. With the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War at its peak, Inniger learned he had drawn a high draft number and ultimately received his papers to report to the Army while on his honeymoon. He got in the reserves, but he got out late and didn't have the chance to train the way he was accustomed.
While all of this was going on, the Minnesota franchise had moved to Miami. Inniger was with the Miami Floridians for the duration of the 1968-69 season, but was only able to play in 34 games and he decided to end his professional career after those two seasons.
But Inniger very much valued the chance to play professionally and remembers that time fondly.
"The level of play in the ABA was really good. You didn't have the experience of the guys in the NBA like Bill Russell and John Havlicek, but you're talking about Rick Barry coming into the (ABA), Dr. J (Julius Erving) came into the league. Connie Hawkins, who goes into the NBA when the leagues merge and he's a superstar," Inniger said. "So I got to play two years of pro ball, and it was an unbelievably good experience for me."
But now that it was over, Inniger had a question to answer – what's next?
The answer to that came courtesy of a trip to, of all things, a Minnesota Twins baseball game.
COLLEGE COACHING JOURNEY
Inniger was taking in a game by the local baseball franchise and, unbeknownst to him, was seated next to the athletic director at Golden Valley Lutheran Junior College. The pair struck up a conversation. Inniger said he was looking for a new path now that his playing days were over. The athletic director said he was looking for a new head basketball coach.
He asked Inniger to come in for an interview on the following Monday, Inniger landed the job, and his head coaching career was underway. His debut season included a .500 record with the junior college program, which left a bad taste in Inniger's mouth. So he decided to go back to his roots to turn the team's fortunes around.
"I didn't really like .500 – I wanted to win," Inniger said. "So I came back to Indiana and picked up two kids – ones from Kendallville, and one from Bluffton. I also brought in one from Illinois and we won the conference the next year."
Inniger enjoyed two more successful years at Golden Valley Lutheran before a new opportunity came at Augsburg University in Minneapolis. There, he compiled a 99-42 record in five years at the NAIA level and captured three MIAC conference championships and earned three trips to the NAIA Tournament.
That success led to his next opportunity, this time at the Division II level. Inniger was hired as the head men's basketball coach at North Dakota State, where he spent 14 years from 1978-92. During that time he had 13 straight winning seasons, won 20 or more games twice, and departed as the school's all-time winningest basketball coach at 244-150. Among his coaching highlights was a 1981 North Central Conference championship as well as the chance to coach one of his two sons, Bart, who spent five years with the program and was the captain of his final Bison basketball team.
"I loved the coaching, loved the competition," said Inniger. "It was a great experience, and I have great relationships with many of my players to this day."
TRANSITIONING TO ADMINSTRATION AND DIVISION 1
When his coaching career came to a close, though, he wasn't done with North Dakota State University. Quite to the contrary. When he decided to step down as the men's basketball coach, he was asked to stay on as the Senior Associate Athletic Director for Development. As significant as his accomplishments were as a coach, his greatest impact on the university likely came in that role.
When Inniger left the coaching profession, North Dakota State was at the NCAA Division II level. They were a dominant force at D-II in a number of sports, most notably football, where they had won eight national championships.
For all the success, many still perceived the university as something less than because it competed at the D-II level. That was true in not only athletics, but academics. That prompted North Dakota President Joseph Chapman to push for the university to make the jump to Division I, and to make that happen, he leaned on new athletic director Gene Taylor (now the athletic director at Kansas State) and Inniger.
The challenge was daunting, with the biggest obstacle being money. Among many other things, the scholarship needs were going to double, and the athletic department's budget would ultimately increase exponentially.
"Money was the hardest thing," Inniger said.
But there was more than just raising the money. There was also the five-year transition period before officially joining the D-I ranks. Designed to ease the financial burden on schools making the transition, it also prevents all of the school's programs from competing in national championship events during that period of time.
For a program with the success nationally that NDSU had, that was tough for many to handle. And that, ultimately, was another of the high hurdles that Inniger and others had to clear – convincing the local community and passionate fans that this was best for the long-term success of the university and athletic department.
"It was the toughest five years of my life, but also the five most rewarding years of my time at NDSU," Inniger said. "Those five years were so hard because you had people saying we'd never win again. We had others from our conference calling us saying 'what do you think you're doing, you think you're better than everyone else.'
"We didn't think that, but we knew what was going to happen. Division II was falling apart."
Ultimately, Inniger and NDSU raised the money, convinced its fan base, and set itself up for a new, brighter future. While in its transition period, the basketball program picked up a couple of huge, head turning wins when it won on the road at both Wisconsin and Marquette. The Bison beat No. 15 Wisconsin 62-55 in 2006, a win that ended the Badgers' 27-game homecourt non-conference win streak at the Kohl Center.
"You do something like that, you're on the market now," Inniger said. "We made national attention when we started doing some of those things."
That success has continued to the present day. The football program has won eight of the last nine Division I FCS national championships and has a 3,000 person waiting list for its season tickets. The men's basketball program has won four Summit League regular season championships, five postseason league crowns, and has earned berths into the NCAA Tournament four times. Other programs, including track and field, have enjoyed national level success as well.
"We believe we were ahead of our time, our vision of things, and I was so glad to be a part of that," Inniger said.
Inniger's work on that transition highlighted a highly-successful athletic administration career that officially ended in 2011. But he didn't remain sidelined for long. Inniger, who was first asked to serve on the Choice Bank's Board of Directors in 2008, joined the bank staff after his retirement from the athletic department and remained there until this past December.
Since then, he's also done some part-time consulting work for the Dakota Medical Foundation, where he worked with 20 area charities to help them streamline their activities. He wrapped that project up recently, although the Foundation just recently contacted him again to see about coming back to do some more work.
He's not sure if he'll do that again or not, but it's a good bet he'll be doing some before long.
"I'm not real lazy," Inniger said. "My wife thinks I should stay home more."
Despite the commitments, the Innigers do make time to see their sons and five grandchildren regularly. He said they saw one grandson play 15 games this year in Minneapolis, and also saw another grandson play 15 more in northern Minnesota. Three of their grandchildren are currently in college, including one, Ben, who played alongside current Hoosier basketball player Race Thompson at Minneapolis' Armstrong High School.
It all keeps him busy, but that's something that Inniger has become accustomed to over the course of his 75 years.
Appreciative as well.
"All I ever wanted to do since I was six years old is play and be around sports," said Inniger. "With all I've been able to do I've been truly blessed."
Players Mentioned
Forward
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