Wartburg College

Wartburg College is a private Lutheran liberal arts college in Waverly, Iowa.

History
Wartburg College was founded in 1852 in Saginaw, Michigan, by Georg M. Grossmann, a native of Neuendettelsau, Bavaria. Grossmann was sent by Pastor Wilhelm Löhe to establish a pastor training school for German immigrants. The location of the college moved many times between Illinois and Iowa until permanently settling in Waverly in 1935. Also in 1935, St. Paul Luther College of the Phalen Park neighborhood of Saint Paul, Minnesota merged into Wartburg College.

The college is named after Wartburg Castle in Eisenach, Germany, where Martin Luther was protected during the stormy days of the Reformation. Student and alumni groups often travel to the castle, and the Wartburg Choir has performed in the castle several times. Waverly and Eisenach are sister towns, and they often swap foreign exchange students. The college is proud of its German heritage, and celebrates an annual student-declared one-day holiday Outfly, a deliberately mistaken translation of the German noun Ausflug. Outfly is the most enduring of Wartburg traditions. The first mention of Ausflug comes from Mendota, Illinois, in 1883 when students went on a Friday-Saturday excursion to nearby Starved Rock, now a state park. Faculty minutes for October 5, 1892, note that Ausflug was scheduled for the following day.

Old Main, the oldest building on the campus, was constructed in 1880 for the Wartburg Teachers Seminary. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 under the name Wartburg Teachers' Seminary.

The longstanding rivalry between Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, and Wartburg College has produced colorful moments over several years. The origins of the rivalry are vague. Stories of pranks date back to the 1940s. The rivalry has, for the most part, been characterized by fun and good sportsmanship. The rivalry rose to new heights in October 1996, when two clever Wartburg cross-country runners rented a light plane, flew to Decorah, and dropped leaflets on the Luther campus. The incident was reported in every major newspaper in Iowa, got national mention on the Fox network, and made Rolling Stone magazine's list of the most memorable college pranks of 1996–1997. The creativity in the rivalry continued when student staff members of the college radio station, KWAR, secretly entered a float in the Luther College Homecoming Parade. The staff members decorated the float as an environmental club - the Organization of Nature Enthusiasts - from Luther College. In front of judges stand, the float quickly changed colors from blue and white to orange and black. The float continued all the way through town and onto Luther's campus, with numerous Wartburg students joining the procession from the crowd as the parade passed them.

In 2022, Rebecca Ehretsman became its first female president.

List of presidents

 * Georg M. Grossmann, 1852–1868
 * John Klindworth, 1868–1875
 * Georg Grossmann, 1878-1894
 * Friedrich Lutz, 1894–1905
 * Gerhard Bergstraesser, 1905–1909
 * Friedrich Richter, 1894–1899 (Clinton IA)
 * Otto Kraushaar, 1899–1907 (Clinton IA)
 * John Fritschel, 1907–1919 (Clinton IA)
 * Otto Proehl, 1919–1935 (Clinton IA)
 * August Engelbrecht, 1909–1933
 * Edward J. Braulick, 1935–1945
 * Conrad Becker, 1945–1964
 * John Bachman, 1964–1974
 * William Jellema, 1974–1980
 * Robert L. Vogel, 1980–1998
 * Jack R. Ohle, 1998–2008
 * William Hamm, 2008–2009 (interim)
 * Darrel Colson, 2009–2022
 * Rebecca Ehretsman, 2022–Present

Location
Wartburg College has moved many times throughout its history:


 * Saginaw, Michigan (1852–1853)
 * Dubuque, Iowa (1853–1857)
 * St. Sebald, Iowa (1857–1868)
 * Galena, Illinois (1868–1875)
 * Mendota, Illinois (1875–1885)
 * Clinton, Iowa (1894–1935)
 * Waverly, Iowa (1879–1933, 1935–present)

Athletics
Wartburg College teams participate as a member of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division III. The Knights are a member of the American Rivers Conference (ARC). Men's sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, soccer, tennis, track & field, and wrestling; while women's sports include basketball, cheerleading, cross country, golf, soccer, softball, tennis, track & field, volleyball, wrestling, and lacrosse. The women's lacrosse team competes in the Midwest Women's Lacrosse Conference (MWLC). In the spring of 2012, Wartburg's wrestling and women's track and field teams led Wartburg to become the only school in NCAA history to win two national team championships on the same day. Wartburg has had an individual or team national champion for 28 straight years including Wartburg Knights wrestling winning the 2022 NCAA DIII Wrestling Tournament. The men's wrestling team has a NCAA DIII leading 15 NCAA national titles. Wartburg's softball team appeared in two Women's College World Series in 1971 and 2003, while the baseball team has also played in two College World Series, coming in 2000 and 2005.

Notable coaches

 * Bob Amsberry, head women's basketball coach, 2006–present
 * Joel Holst, head baseball coach, 1996–2022
 * Eric Keller, head wrestling coach, 2011–present
 * Casey Klunder, head baseball coach, 2023-present
 * Sam Leal, head men's basketball coach, 2024-present
 * Jamie Mueller, head softball coach, 2016–present
 * Dick Peth, head men's basketball coach, 1997–2024
 * Rick Willis, head football coach, 1997–2005 and 2008–2021
 * Chris Winter, head football coach, 2021–present

Notable alumni

 * Don Denkinger, Major League Baseball umpire who achieved notoriety for his call at 1st base as an umpire in the 1985 World Series
 * Matt Entz, head football coach at North Dakota State
 * Romaine H Foege, member, Iowa House of Representatives, 1996–2008, director, Iowa Department on Aging, 2010–2011. CEO, Eastern Iowa Health Center, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 2014–2015
 * Mark Holtz, radio announcer for professional baseball team the Texas Rangers
 * Dan Ige, professional mixed martial artist
 * Rachelle Keck, academic administrator
 * Sarah Lacina, winner of season 34 of Survivor: Game Changers. Appeared on three seasons of survivor and The Challenge: USA
 * Bob Nielson, current head football coach at University of South Dakota
 * Tiffany Pins, head women's soccer coach at Washington and Lee and former Wartburg college head coach
 * Coleen Rowley, whistleblower FBI agent, researched suspected World Trade Center terrorist; jointly held the Time magazine Person of the Year award in 2002
 * Jack Salzwedel, chairman and CEO of American Family Insurance
 * Paul Schell, former mayor of Seattle, Washington
 * Brian Trow, businessman and television personality
 * Chris Winter, head football coach at Wartburg College
 * George J. Woerth, Wisconsin state assemblyman
 * Tom Zirbel, professional bicycle racer and 2009 USA Cycling NRC points champion who signed to Union Cycliste Internationale professional team, Garmin-Transitions for the 2010 season
 * Landon Williams, head men’s wrestling coach at Central College (Iowa)