GRAND RAPIDS — Not many women coaches had been inducted into the Grace Bible College Hall of Fame before Saturday, but Lynn Rosendale changed that last weekend.
A 1985 graduate of Calvin College, Rosendale coached the Grace Bible volleyball team from 1989-93, leading the Tigers to National Christian College Athletic Association Division II regional championships in all five seasons.
“It’s a great honor,” Rosendale said of joining the Hall. “It brought back a lot of great memories of coaching there.”
Some of those memories include earning NCCAA D-II Mid-East coach of the year twice, finishing runner-up for NCCAA D-II National Coach of the Year in 1993 and becoming the all-time leader in wins at Grace Bible with 71.
“I always had small teams number-wise,” Rosendale said. “So the success that we were able to have with the amount of players we had to choose from was impressive. The way they would come together and accomplish things, like making the national tournaments, was special.”
Nicknamed “Lightning Bolt” by one of her college coaches, Rosendale was a middle hitter for Calvin, earning all-MIAA honors three times while helping the Knights finish fourth in 1984 at the NCAA Division III tournament.
The Hall induction has helped Rosendale reconnect with some of her former players.
“Just being around all the girls I coached reminded me of all the great relationships I had with them,” said Rosendale, now the associate director of communications and marketing at Calvin.
“One of the reasons I quit was because I have two daughters,” she said. “But being back at Grace Bible really reminded me about how much I loved it there.”
