A former head coach at three different universities, Dan Hipsher is entering his first season at USF after assisting Stan Heath at the University of Arkansas the past two years.
Hipsher has 28 years of collegiate coaching experience to his credit, including 15 years as a head coach at Akron, Stetson and Wittenberg University. As a head coach, he compiled a career record of 238-182 from 1990-2004. Overall as a head coach and assistant, his teams have earned eight NCAA Tournament bids.
Hipsher has shown the ability as a head coach to maintain an already successful program as he did at Wittenberg or rebuild struggling programs as he did at Stetson University and the University of Akron. In four years at NCAA Division III Wittenberg (1989-93), he was 97-18; in two years at Stetson University (1993-95), he was 29-27; and in nine years at the University of Akron (1995-2004), he was 112-137. He earned conference coach of the year honors at each school. He also coached for USA Basketball at Colorado Springs, Colo., in 1997.
At Wittenberg, a program jumpstarted in the 1960’s by SEC coaching legend Ray Mears (Tennessee), Hipsher inherited a program rich in tradition that leads all of NCAA Division III basketball in victories. Hipsher's teams carried on that tradition in his four seasons, winning North Coast Athletic Conference regular season titles each year, the tournament title twice and advancing to the NCAA Tournament three times. Hipsher was named NCAC and Great Lakes Region coach of the year in 1990.
When he moved to Stetson for the 1994 season, the Hatters had suffered three losing seasons in the previous four years. He went 14-15 his first season, but took Stetson to the championship game of the Trans America Athletic Conference Tournament. After a 15-12 mark and TAAC coach of the year honors in 1995, he moved to the University of Akron, which had posted three straight records of 8-18, including a 9-45 record in conference play.
The Zips were a combined 11-41 his first two years, but beginning with the 1998 season won 17 or more games for three straight years and led the MAC in conference victories during that span. The 1998 squad went 17-10 and won the Mid-American Conference's East Division with Hipsher earning MAC coach of the year accolades. He was also named Ohio's college coach of the year by the Columbus Dispatch, edging Cincinnati's Bob Huggins. The Zips were 18-9 in 1999 and finished 17-11 in 2000.
While Hipsher was at Akron, attendance for Zips games doubled at the James A. Rhodes Arena. The Zips led all of NCAA Division I in three-point shooting in 2001 (.433). They led the MAC in overall shooting in 1998 (.472) and 2004 (.466), and in free throw percentage in 2000 (.763).
Hipsher, a two-time first-team all-state selection at Fostoria (Ohio) High School, was a multiple letter winner in both basketball and baseball at Bowling Green State University. The two-time captain was named MAC All-Academic team twice (honorable mention CoSIDA All-American) in basketball.
After graduating from BGSU with a bachelor's in chemistry and biology in 1977, he worked as a graduate assistant at Miami (Ohio) University under Darrell Hedric, earning his master's in education a year later. That year, Miami won the MAC title and beat defending national champion Marquette in the first round of the 1978 NCAA Tournament.
After two years as an assistant at Miami-Dade Community College working under Bruce Huckle, he returned to Ohio as an assistant at the University of Dayton. In his nine years (1981-89) under Don Donoher, the Flyers were 152-114 and earned two trips to the NCAA Tournament and three to the NIT.
Hipsher and his wife, Sue, also a 1977 Bowling Green graduate, have two sons, Andy (27) and Bryan (25).
