The reintroduction of athletics to Southwestern Michigan College continues full speed ahead as Jeanine Wasielewski has been hired as the new women’s basketball coach. She’s originally from the South Bend area, played Division I basketball at Northwestern University, and worked in information technology for years before coaching college basketball. Wasielewski took coaching jobs in Denver, Chicago, and at Penn State. She tells WSJM News the SMC opportunity was a perfect fit.
“The idea of completely starting with a blank slate and being able to create and build from the ground up was appealing, to say the least,” Wasielewski said. “
SMC hasn’t had athletics since the 1990s, and now it’s brought back cross-country, basketball, volleyball, and co-ed bass fishing. Wasielewski tells us the leadership at SMC is committed to the athletics program and she sees enthusiasm for sports.
“You’ll naturally get that level of enrollment up, but it also creates events on campus. It creates community events here on campus both for the students and the community at large, and everybody’s really excited about that aspect of it.”
Wasielewski will spend the bulk of her time for the next year recruiting to have a team ready for the fall of 2022. She says there’s a great deal of work going on around campus to ensure the SMC athletes have all the facilities they need. That work includes upgrades to the student activity center. Speaking of sports, SMC announced this week Bill Matthews will be the bass fishing coach.
