Upper Iowa University Director of Athletics Rick Hartzell announced Nate Oakland as the new head coach of the Peacock women’s basketball program on Tuesday. Oakland will be the 14th head coach in the 44-year history of the Peacock women’s basketball.
“I am thrilled to be able to bring Nate Oakland into the Upper Iowa University family,” said Hartzell. “We had a huge pool of quality candidates for this head women’s basketball coaching position, and after an extensive process, Nate rose to the top of the pool. I am extraordinarily confident that he is the person to fix this program. I will do everything I can to help him be successful here. We are looking forward to having a championship women’s basketball program, in every phase of the program, from academics to the quality of play and growth of all the team members very, very soon. Nate’s ties to Iowa and coaching acumen will lead us on that path to success.”
The Cedar Falls native comes to Upper Iowa from Fargo, N.D., where he served as an assistant coach with the women’s basketball program at North Dakota State University, a NCAA Division I member of the Summit League, for the last two years.
“I am ecstatic to be at Upper Iowa and returning home to northeast Iowa,” said Oakland. “I am equally excited to return to the head coach position and for the challenge that lies ahead as we turn this women’s basketball program around. Our vision from day one will be to compete with the great teams in the Northern Sun Conference, arguably one of the toughest NCAA Division II conferences in the country.”
The Peacock women’s basketball team finished the 2018-19 season with a 3-28 mark and a second straight conference mark of 0-22.
“I would like to extend my most sincere thank you to Kelly Kielsmeier for his excellent work as the Interim Head Coach during the last six weeks of the season,” Hartzell stated. “Kelly did a great job in stabilizing the program, and he deserves a great deal of credit for that work.”
Oakland joined the Bison staff in 2017 after serving as the head women’s basketball coach at Coe College in Cedar Rapids for the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons. Prior to his time at Coe, Oakland was an assistant coach at Wartburg College (2011-15), Coe (2009-11), the University of Northern Iowa (2006-09) and the University of Minnesota-Morris (2005-06).
Throughout his 14 years of coaching, Oakland logged thousands of hours in recruiting the Midwest concentrating his efforts in Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois and Missouri.
“I have been fortunate to have a handful of mentors over my time in coaching,” said Oakland. “Without their guidance and the time and effort they invested in my development, this opportunity would not be possible. For that I thank them.”
In addition to coaching basketball, he also led the men’s golf team at Wartburg for three years and the men’s and women’s tennis teams during his time at Minnesota-Morris.
Oakland graduated from Northern Iowa in 2004 with a bachelor’s degree in sports psychology and earned a master’s degree in sports psychology from UNI in 2011.
He and his wife, Alex, are the parents of five children including daughters Jordann and Quinncy and sons Eli, Kaiden and Maddox.
https://uiupeacocks.com/news/2019/4/2/nate-oakland-named-head-womens-basketball-coach.aspx
