Meet the Coach
Dave Balza begins his fifth season as head men's basketball coach at Florida Gulf Coast University. In May of 2001, Balza was selected from over 200 candidates to be the program¡¦s first basketball coach. FGCU celebrated its first academic year in 1997, started athletics in 2000 and became an official NCAA Division II program in 2004. Earlier this year, Florida Gulf Coast University applied for membership in NCAA Division I and accepted an invitation into the Atlantic Sun Conference. They will begin play in the league as a Division I institution in the fall of 2007.
Balza's teams are renowned for playing an exciting, up-tempo, hard-nosed basketball. His FGCU teams have recorded a combine 87-33 record (.725 winning percentage) in the first four years of competition. In that time, the Eagles have averaged 79 points per game, have outscored the opposition by 12 points per game, and have won an average of 21.7 games per season.
Balza's squads have also excelled on the defensive end, holding the opposition to just over 40% from the field and forcing nearly 18 turnovers per contest. FGCU has also posted a rebounding margin of nearly 10 rebounds per game better than the opposition over a four-year span. In 2004-05, FGCU posted the best rebounding margin in NCAA Division II (+10.2).
The Eagles are looking forward to a big year in 2006-07, their last season in Division II. They are coming off of an 18-win season in 2005-06, including wins in eight of the last nine contests despite having lost eight seniors and four starters from the previous year.
Balza guided the Eagles to a berth in the NCAA Division II Championship Tournament in 2004-05, their first year eligible for post-season selection, after posting a 24-7 mark, the most wins in the program's short history.
In 2003-04, Balza's Eagles went 22-5, setting a program-best winning percentage of .815. They opened the season winning their first 14 games and were ranked in the Top 20 in the country for the entire year, reaching as high as No. 5. They ran their home winning streak to 29 games and were the only D2 team in the country with victories over D1 teams on consecutive nights.
In FGCU's inaugural season in 2002-03, Balza led the Eagles to a 23-9 record. They opened Alico Arena with a 14-0 home mark on the season and scored a whopping 82 points per game.
Balza prepared for his task of building the FGCU program from scratch by helping to rebuild three struggling programs. He made his mark as a head coach at St. Joseph's (Indiana) in the vaunted Great Lakes Valley Conference, considered the premier Division II basketball conference in the nation.
One week before classes began, Balza took over a St. Joseph's program that had been placed on two-year probation by the NCAA and proceeded to win more conference games than in the previous two seasons combined. More important, he restored a clean image to a program steeped in tradition.
After wading through the penalties of the two-year probation, he won 18 games in his third year in a league that included three top-ten teams in the country. As a result, Balza was selected as the 2001 GLVC Coach of the Year and the Region Coach of the Year.
Balza was also an assistant at Division II Ashland (Ohio) from 1996-98 and spent five years as an assistant at Division I Cleveland State from 1991 to 1996. Both of those coaching staffs took over programs that had been placed on probation and had great success turning around the fortunes of their teams, winning 18 games at Ashland and 22 games at CSU in just his second year at each institution. At Cleveland State, Balza made his name as a recruiter, helping to assemble one of the top 35 recruiting classes in the country.
Balza has preached of "building a first class tradition" since taking the reigns at Florida Gulf Coast University. He has molded the Eagles into a model program for integrity on the basketball floor, in the classroom, and in the community. Academic success and community involvement are just as important to Balza as on-court preparation. His Eagles have never had a semester team G.P.A below a 2.70 and have hovered at or above a 3.0 cumulative G.P.A. for most of his tenure. In addition, Balza's teams have been very active in the community, helping the athletics program reach more than 10,000 youngsters in Southwest Florida through events such as: Eagle Reading, Eagle Math, Community Reach Out Program, Habitat for Humanity, Hoops for the Heart, visits to hospitals, and volunteering at the Ronald McDonald House.
A native of South Haven, MI, Balza is a 1991 graduate of the University of Michigan, where he served first as a student manager with the 1989 national championship team and later as a student assistant and video coordinator. Balza earned a master's degree in education from Cleveland State University in 1993. He is a member of the National Association of Basketball Coaches and has been published in the NABC Courtside magazine on the topic of post play. He now resides in Fort Myers with his wife, Karrie.
Career Highlights
* Just completed 19th year in college basketball
* Led FGCU to NCAA tournament berth in their first year of eligibility in 2004-05
* Won 100th career game in February, 2005
* Named FGCU's first men's basketball coach in May, 2001
* Great Lakes Region Coach of the Year in 2001
* Great Lakes Valley Conference Coach of the Year 2000-01
* Member of the NABC
* PDS Certified 2004
* Featured in biography sections of College Insider and DII Bulletin
* Published on "Art of Post Play" in NABC Courtside
* Member of staff of 1989 National Champions - University of Michigan 2001
|
