MU | F e a t u r e s
“
M
anchester had
a whole lot
more influence
than I ever
imagined,”says
Stan Weller ’66.
“It prepared
me to be successful and allowed me to give
something back.”
And give back he did.
A recent gift from the former basketball
standout provided the new state-of-the-art
floor in Stauffer-Wolfe Arena. The surface is
nearly three times as forgiving as the old floor,
a great improvement for student-athletes.
Growing up in North Manchester, Weller
decided to enroll at Manchester and try
out for the basketball team. Wolfe was
on sabbatical, so Weller started under the
tutelage of Hoffman and on the junior
varsity team. After the JV team defeated
the varsity team in a couple of full-game
scrimmages, Hoffman promoted Weller to
varsity. “Coach Hoffman was just a genuine
man, just a good person,” Weller says. “You
just wanted to do as much as you could to
do what he was trying to do.” When Wolfe
came back for Weller’s junior year, the team
just got stronger. They won the conference
his senior year. “It was a great experience,”
Weller reflects.
“I knew that somebody would benefit and be
a better person because of it.”
– Stan Weller ’66
“In athletics, we are passionate about many
things including student-athletes’ health and
well-being,” says Rick Espeset, athletic director.
“This generous gift is a big improvement.” The
new court is a great legacy for Stan to leave
the University and, specifically, the students,”
adds Brad Nadborne, former men’s basketball
coach.
Weller, a 2007 inductee to the MU Athletics
Hall of Fame, scored 1,189 career points,
which ranks 16th all-time at MU. He earned
four varsity letters, made All-Conference in
1965 and 1966, and was named a National
Association of Intercollegiate Athletics
(NAIA) honorable mention All-American
following his senior season.
The new floor has been christened the “Stan
Weller Court Honoring Coaches Hoffman and
Wolfe.” It’s a tribute to the two men – coaches
Claude Wolfe ’40 and Paul Hoffman ’54 –
who had such a profound impact on Weller
and so many other student-athletes. “I felt
very strongly that those two should have some
recognition,” he says, “as a reminder that they
are great people.”
He graduated with distinction from
Manchester with a bachelor’s degree in
chemistry and earned his Ph.D. in chemistry
in 1973 from the University of Florida. In
1970, while still working on his doctoral
dissertation, he returned to Manchester as
an instructor of chemistry. “It was the ideal
job to start right out of grad school,” says
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Weller. “I was doing something I liked, and I
was doing it at a place that I really respected
and had a lot of feelings for.”
During his time on the faculty, Weller took
up the post of men’s tennis head coach,
despite having no experience with the sport.
“I will get them to the matches on time, and
I will have them in condition,” he promised
then-president A. Blair Helman. The rest
he left up to his players. Weller’s teams had
several good seasons and earned the NAIA
District 21 championship in 1978.
Weller then completed tenures at Huntington
Laboratories in Huntington, Ind., and
Ecolab, Inc., in Mendota Heights, Minn., and
is currently the chief technical officer and
vice president for research and development
at Zep, Inc., a leading producer and marketer
of a wide range of high-efficacy maintenance
and cleaning solutions.
He recognizes that Manchester had a big
impact on his career success, and on his
ability to give back. “I knew that it would be
put to good use,” he says of his gift, “and I
knew that somebody would benefit and be a
better person because of it.”
Tim McElwee ’78, vice president for
advancement, appreciates the reciprocity of
Weller’s generosity. “It is a gift from a former
Manchester student-athlete to the current
generation of Manchester student-athletes,”
says McElwee. “It’s always wonderful when
grateful alumni are motivated to return the
favor by supporting today’s Manchester
students.”
By Ben Ogden ’12
Stan Weller ’66 (opposite page) returned to
his alma mater this year to dedicate the new
floor in Stauffer-Wolfe Arena, which honors
his Manchester basketball