Augsburg University Athletics

Stu Engen '86 played two seasons of men’s basketball at Augsburg as a forward after transferring from Normandale Community College and made a dramatic impact for two of the best teams in school history. An All-MIAC first-team selection in both of his Auggie campaigns (1984-85 and 1985-86), he averaged 13.1 points and 5.2 rebounds per-game on the 1985 Auggie squad that won the MIAC title and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Division III national tournament, finishing 21-7. In 1985-86, he led the team in both scoring (16.0 ppg) and rebounding (7.9 rpg) on a team that finished 18-8. In his two seasons (53 games), he scored 771 points, good for 34^th in school history in career scoring, averaging 14.5 points per-game. He graduated from Augsburg with a degree in adapted physical education in 1986, and earned his master’s degree from the University of South Dakota in 1990. After graduating, he began a successful coaching career, first as an assistant at Augsburg for two seasons and as an assistant at South Dakota for two years. He went 41-16 as head coach at Western Wisconsin Technical College (La Crosse, Wis.) from 1990-92, earning conference and region Coach of the Year honors in 1992. He then moved to Upper Iowa University, where his teams won three Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference regular-season titles and one conference tournament title, advancing to the NCAA Division III national tournament twice. His 135-70 record at Upper Iowa is still the school’s record for career wins, and he earned IIAC Coach of the Year honors three times. In 2000, he moved to become the head coach at Wisconsin-La Crosse, where he led the team to its best record in 20 seasons with a 17-9 finish in 2001-02, earning Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Coach of the Year honors. He then spent eight seasons (2002-10) as head coach at Minnesota State University Moorhead, where he earned Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference tournament runner-up honors in 2002-03, with his 19-10 the best record for the school in 28 years. Engen and his wife, Mary, have four children – daughters Mikkel, Alyse, Tierza, and son Everett – and live in Moorhead, Minn.