Katrina Sargent

“I love SDSU very much,” Nancy Neiber, long time coach, associate athletic director of student services and senior woman administrator, said. “It is a part of who I am.”

Neiber is retiring on June 21, after 25 years of working at South Dakota State University.

Neiber has been working hard at SDSU for the last 25 years. She coached women’s basketball from 1984 – 2000, and then became the first full-time senior woman administrator for athletics at SDSU.

Her duties have been numerous and varied. They include: sport supervision, fund-raising, public relations, instruction in academic programs and overseeing student-athlete programs.

One of the most important roles Neiber played at SDSU was that of mentor for the students she worked with.

“That’s why I’m in this profession, to work with young people,” Neiber said. She also said that she saw it as her goal to use her reservoir of knowledge to help students and instill that knowledge to the young people she has worked with.

“Neiber has provided a strong professional model for young women,” Fred Oien, SDSU’s director of athletics, said. Oien also said that Neiber isn’t just a role model for those on the court; she is also an example of a strong woman in the administrative side of the profession as well.

Oien said that many of the women Neiber has influenced have gone on to become coaches and do other work with athletics.

When Neiber was coaching, “[There] wasn’t a harder working, more disciplined coach,” Oien said.

Neiber has received many awards during her time with the Jackrabbits, including North Central Coach of the Year in 1988 and 1995, SDSU Woman of Distinction in 2001 and she was inducted into the South Dakota Sports Hall of Fame in 2003.

In addition, Neiber is also a member of the Pierre High School, Black Hills State and Dakota State halls of fame because of the coaching work she did before coming to SDSU.

Neiber has been a vital member of the athletics program at SDSU. She is a caring passionate woman who has made many contributions to athletics on this campus.

Neiber will miss SDSU, but she said that she is ready for a change.

“Retirement is a process after a lifetime of work … I hope to do what I want when I want,” Neiber said.

#1.883422:1469571512.jpg:Neiber01.cs.jpg:Nancy Neiber, former women’s basketball coach and athletics administrator, is leaving SDSU after 25 years.:Courtney Smith