Bethel Hires New Wom­en’s Bas­ket­ball As­sis­tant Coach

Alba Gar­cia, Guest Writer

Note to the reader: Gar­cia is a mem­ber of the wom­en’s bas­ket­ball team.

MISHAWAKA- Bran­don Auker is the new as­sis­tant coach for the wom­en’s bas­ket­ball team, and this is his first se­mes­ter at Bethel. He earned his B.A. in com­mu­ni­ca­tion stud­ies from Elmhurst Col­lege in Illi­nois in 2018, and his M.S. in Sport Man­age­ment from the Uni­ver­sity of In­di­anapo­lis in 2020.

Auker al­ways wanted to be a coach and is thrilled for the op­por­tu­nity at Bethel.

“The Bethel wom­en’s bas­ket­ball pro­gram is in one of the best con­fer­ences in the coun­try and has had some amaz­ing teams in the past,” Auker said. “The team has a ton of po­ten­tial, with a great cul­ture, and I wanted to be a part of its bright fu­ture.”

Auker served as a grad­u­ate as­sis­tant on the wom­en’s bas­ket­ball team at the Uni­ver­sity of In­di­anapo­lis for two years. Af­ter the last sea­son, he went to Lo­ras Col­lege, in Iowa, where he served as an as­sis­tant for the men’s golf team for the 2020-21 sea­son. How­ever, this po­si­tion at Bethel is go­ing to be his first full-time paid coach­ing job.

Auker is ex­cited to start the new sea­son and he is al­ready push­ing his play­ers to com­mu­ni­cate, lis­ten to each other, work hard and have great at­ti­tudes. One of the goals he has as as­sis­tant coach is for the play­ers to look back at their col­lege ca­reers with no re­grets. 

“I ex­pect them to work hard so they can be­come more con­fi­dent,” Auker said. “More con­fi­dence leads to bet­ter and more con­sis­tent on-court per­for­mances.” 

He does­n’t want his play­ers to think in the fu­ture that they could have worked harder in the past. That’s why he does­n’t just teach bas­ket­ball. He teaches ef­fort, good work ethic and self­less­ness to his play­ers.

“Play­ing a sport in col­lege is not easy, but how you take on the real world af­ter is what truly mat­ters,” Auker said. 

Auker said that he is tak­ing this year as a learn­ing process to be more con­fi­dent in his job. He con­firmed that he has more re­spon­si­bil­i­ties than he has had be­fore, but he is work­ing on gain­ing the ex­pe­ri­ence he needs to some­day serve as a head coach, a goal he hopes to achieve in five to ten years.