Dr. Nancy Meyer, USTFCCCA Coaches Hall of Fame Class of 2021
Dr. Nancy Meyer has long dedicated her life to the student-athlete experience.
Whether it be leading Calvin University’s women’s cross country program to national prominence, spending the past 24 years as an administrator in the Knights’ athletic department or coaching a number of other sports while teaching in the Calvin kinesiology department, Meyer always saw tremendous value in helping to mold the future leaders of tomorrow.
Meyer wasted no time in getting to work after graduating from Calvin University in 1978. The very next year, she began teaching at her alma mater in addition to taking on the roles of head coach for the swimming & diving and tennis programs. That would last until 1983.
After receiving her master’s degree from the University of Arizona in 1984 and her doctorate from the University of Northern Colorado in 1986, Meyer returned to Calvin as a Knight in Shining Armor, taking over the reins of its women’s cross country program that same year.
It didn’t take long for Meyer to turn the Knights into a juggernaut at the conference level, as she already had championship-building experience from her first stint at Calvin, leading the women’s tennis team to back-to-back MIAA titles in 1981 and 1982. But the mark of a Hall of Fame coach is being able to turn that conference success into regional and national triumphs, something the women’s cross country team had in spades under Meyer.
From 1988 to 2003, Calvin was unmatched in the MIAA and the Great Lakes Region. During that span, the Knights won 16 consecutive conference titles and won all but one regional crown.
Calvin qualified for the NCAA Division III Cross Country Championships for the first time in 1989 and three years later, got its first taste of the podium with a runner-up finish to SUNY Cortland. That would be a familiar sight at the NCAA meet in each of the next two years as the Red Dragons, coached by USTFCCCA Hall of Famer Dr. Jack Daniels, proved to be the foil for the Meyer-led Knights, as they finished in the same positions in 1993 and 1994.
As the decade drew to a close, Meyer finally reached the top of the podium after two more top-4 finishes. Calvin won back-to-back titles in 1998 and 1999 to make Meyer just the third coach in NCAA DIII history to lead a women’s program to consecutive crowns. The Knights were paced by Amy Mizzone and Lisa Timmer, both of whom finished in the top-15 in back-to-back years.
Calvin continued to dominate the MIAA and contend at the NCAA Championships in the final six years of Meyer’s career. The Knights won five of six conference titles between 2000 and 2005 and finished as high as fifth in 2002 and 2003.
Meyer, a two-time National Coach of the Year and eight-time Regional Coach of the Year, stepped down in 2006. She remained an integral part of the Calvin athletic department as the Senior Associate Athletics Director/Athletics Compliance Director and as a full-time professor in the Calvin kinesiology department before retiring at the end of the 2020-2021 academic year.
She is married to Roy Hopp and has two children, Ally and Ben.