Learn About UW-Sheboygan
Jon Westlund
I will be coaching the men's basketball team this coming year. Basketball has been a major love of mine, when it comes to sports, since my childhood.
I was originally born in Schweinfurt, Germany and came to the United States when I was 2 1/2 years old. My full name was changed to a Swedish name when I was just 5 days old, due to my being adopted. So my youth was a bit eventful.
My love for sports also began in my youth. My first memory of it was a big touchdown catch on my first play of my first game of football. I soon fell in love with football, basketball and baseball.
In junior high, I played team sports of some kind nearly every day of the year. In high school, I was in football, cross country, basketball and track. During the summer, I ran and played softball. In college, I continued on with cross country and track, though an injury cut things short. In hindsight, it should have been football and basketball.
So when the oppportunity came to coach basketball at a small school with junior high age kids, I jumped at it because I wanted to teach others to appreciate the value of sports. It was a chance again to live out my love for sports.
I really love sports and sports has been very good to me. Let me share a few examples of how sports has been good to me because I choose to participate and coach. When I lived in California and coached out there, I got to be "Flow Jo's" bodyguard at an Olympic Summer Festival. I also got to meet at a UCLA Bruins basketball game, Bob Beamon, then still the world record holder in the triple jump. I also got to coach against Marion Jones in the state finals in California. My highlight though was meeting and talking at length with Coach John Wooden, the famous former coach of the UCLA Bruins. I still have his home phone #, if I need pointers.
When I am not strategizing for one of five sports I have coached in the past, I am strategizing church things in my other line of work. I love it too, and am really enjoying getting to know the people of Sheboygan. I'm looking forward to an enjoyable upcoming basketball season.
Coach Jon Westlund
Phone: (920) 459-6643
Email: jon.westlund@uwc.edu