TORRINGTON – The Torrington Rotary Club met for their Monday lunch meeting at the Cottonwood County Club in Torrington. 

Lisa Johnson, the president-elect called the meeting to order shortly after noon while Rotarians were finishing up their meals. After Rotarian formalities including the Pledge of Allegiance, Torrington Chief of Police, Matt Johnson briefly spoke on this week’s community events including National Night Out on Tuesday, August 6. 

Rotarian Todd Peterson introduced the speakers for the afternoon, which were new athletic director and men’s basketball coach at Eastern Wyoming College (EWC), Bill Engel and EWC Women’s Basketball coach, Tim Larsen. 

“As far as the women’s basketball program is going, kind of the athletic programs in general, for us it’s just following up on a great season we had last year,” Larsen said. “We have 16 wins but also, we had ten academic all-Americans on our team last year which is a process where you nominate them. The national office is based on a whole bunch of factors, their GPA and what classes they took, so we are really proud of that.” 

Larsen explained out of nine EWC sophomores, eight have graduated and moved on to play at the next level and according to Larsen, the college is excited about the achievements.

“Ever since coach (Engel) got here we’ve been doing some different things in the athletic department from administrative level kind of redoing some of the esthetics in the lobby and the gym. Putting up some signage and updating our pictures and kind of modernizing it a little bit. We’ve got some more tables in there as everybody comes up for games days when volleyball starts and as basketball starts hopefully there’s a little bit different of an atmosphere than there’s been in the last couple of years since I’ve been here,” Larsen explained. “Just being able to potentially have some pizza or a hot meal at the games and sit down with your families at the high tables and be able to have a good atmosphere.”

Larsen expressed the EWC volleyball coach was excited for the upcoming year, noting the team roster had more players than in previous years. Larsen also mentioned the women’s golf team’s excitement.

“We have 13 on the roster for women’s basketball,” Larsen said.

Of those 13 players, Larsen noted some players were international students.

“We’ve got some kids from Colorado, Utah, Arizona. We’ve got one that returned from Texas. We’ve got five or six international kids. A couple from England and Ireland. We’ve got them from all over the place,” Larsen explained. 

Larsen took a moment to explain to the Rotary club how some international students make their way to EWC by “agents” or “handlers” who find temporary homes for the international students in Goshen County with families. 

Engel explained to the club he was thankful to be in Torrington and so far, he was enjoying the community. Engel took the job as athletic director at EWC a month ago.

“I really enjoy the community in Torrington and look forward to becoming a part of it over the next few years,” Engel explained. “Hopefully [I] can stay here for a quite while and build the program and help the athletic program. Everyone here has been great. Everybody on the campus has been fantastic. As Tim noted, projects are moving in the right direction so if you get a chance, stop by,” Engel said. 

Engel said in his previous position at Minnesota North College – Rainy River he built the athletic programs off four main principles, and he explained he coached basketball at a North Dakota high school for 19 years in addition to his college experience of nine years. 

“I’ve been doing this for a little while now and we built our programs off of four things,” Engel explained. “Number one, be a good person. Number two, be the best that you can become. Number three, be coachable. Number four, be relentless. If we all do those four things, then after we will start to look at the talent level and make sure that we find the right kids. But really start with those four things. Kurt Roach once said, ‘It’s not about finding the best kids; it’s about finding the right kids.’ We are all about that,” Engel said. 

Engel gave an overview of the changes being made in the athletics department at the college in the form of community relations.

“I think the real vision is being able to give back to people,” Engel said. “It feels like sometimes you’re on campus or you’re somewhere where you’re always asking for things, and we don’t want to do that. We want to be in a place where we are giving back to the community and being involved in all of the programs. As far as the vision moving forward, we want folks to show ownership to where they are.” 

The meeting concluded with an in-depth discussion on the importance of the EWC athlete-host family program and the meeting was adjourned at 12:47 p.m.