Northwest Missouri State Athletics

• Seven-time nation champion (three as a football coach – 1998, 1999, 2010 and four as an athletic director – football – 2013, 2015, 2016; men's basketball – 2016)
• 12-time MIAA Coach of the Year and four-time National Coach of the Year
• Owns NCAA Div. II record for postseason coaching wins (32)

Author Jim George is credited with the quote, “It’s not how you start that’s important, but how you finish”.  That statement stands as a pretty accurate description of Mel Tjeerdsma’s career at Northwest.
 
After a 6-16 record following his first two seasons…the Bearcat football program would reach heights over the next 15 years that are unmatched at any level of college football. Three national championships, four additional trips to Florence, Alabama for title games and 12 MIAA titles. The architect of this dominant decade and a half would collect four national coach of the year honors and 12 MIAA Coach of the Year awards. How dominant was the Bearcats run? Well, here’s just one impressive stat of many - in the final 15 years of his career the Bearcats would win 125 out of 134 regular season conference contests, including 46 straight as he concluded his coaching tenure in 2010.
 
As if his Northwest legacy was not already strong enough, he would return for a five-year stint as athletic director which would net another four national titles in athletics – three in football and the program’s first in men’s basketball. The hoops title completed an historic 2016-2017 school year run that featured the Bearcats making division two history as the only institution to win football and men’s basketball in the same academic year.

He is a member of numerous halls of fame throughout the country and now is officially enshrined in the M Club Hall of Fame at Northwest Missouri State. His 22 years at Northwest will never be matched and his impact in Northwest Missouri will continue to be felt for decades.