Alumni Create Janet Berry Leadership Endowment Fund
Establishment of endowment honors, humbles, and surprises longtime head coach who learns about the effort in a halftime anniversary recognition of league title teams.

Coach Janet Berry was touched, humbled, and surprised as Buena Vista University announced an endowment created in her honor during an alumni game day on Saturday, Jan. 29, in Siebens Fieldhouse.
“I can’t believe this,” Berry said, tears welling in her eyes upon learning of the establishment of the Janet Berry Leadership Endowment Fund. “Any kind of an endowment is a big deal; I know that from my years in helping manage the endowment honoring the work of the late Dr. Al Lewis in our physical education department. This means my impact, or what I worked to accomplish with student-athletes at BVU, will continue in the future. That means the world to me.”
Berry was honored on Saturday as one of her Iowa Conference Championship teams feted the 25th anniversary of its league title, the third of five regular season titles Berry’s teams earned in her 26 years as Head Coach of the Beaver women’s basketball program. Other alumni from both men’s and women’s basketball gathered for the day, a celebration featuring basketball scrimmages, league title anniversaries, a luncheon, lots of conversation, and a doubleheader sweep of the Luther Norse.
“Janet’s goal from the day she began at BVU in 1992 was to empower us to make a difference for ourselves and others when we graduated.”
Nicole Kotrba '95
The occasion took a more emotional turn at halftime of the women’s basketball game when BVU disclosed the Janet Berry Leadership Endowment Fund, created to honor Berry for her years of leadership, competitiveness, and passionate empowerment of young women. Each year, the women’s basketball coaching staff will be able to use funds generated by the endowment to finance meaningful opportunities for women in the program to develop leadership skills while fostering team unity. For information on how you can help fund this endowment as it progresses, please see BVU Advancement contact information below.
The establishment of the fund was directed by BVU alumni Jeremy Dettmer ’96, Stephanie Gronau ’98, and Nicole Kotrba ’95. Dettmer served as an assistant coach for Berry during his junior and senior years as an undergraduate. He would return to work as an assistant coach later in his career. Kotrba was Berry’s first point guard. After suffering a career-ending injury as a junior, she, too, worked as an assistant coach. Both Dettmer and Kotrba went on to earn doctorates while coaching at other colleges and high schools. Gronau, a CPA and finance manager at Corteva Agriscience in Johnston, was inducted to the BVU Athletics Hall of Fame as a player for Berry and has remained closely connected to BVU Athletics for years.
“I wouldn’t be where I am today if it weren’t for Janet Berry,” said Dettmer, who teaches and coaches at Brock High School in Brock, Tex.
“Janet was more than a basketball coach,” Gronau says. “As college student-athletes, we didn’t realize the impact of the life skills she was sharing on a daily basis. She taught us to be confident. She inspired us to believe in ourselves and believe in each other. Her own tenacity, competitiveness, and passion for leadership rubbed off on us.”
Establishing an endowment while enumerating Berry’s qualities and sustained success should encourage additional gifts to a fund that will live on and change lives.
“Janet’s goal from the day she began at BVU in 1992 was to empower us to make a difference for ourselves and others when we graduated,” says Kotrba, a former collegiate head coach who now raises nine-year-old twins and serves as an instructional aid in an elementary school in Branchburg, N.J. “And while Janet isn’t serving in that capacity on a daily basis in retirement, she laid that groundwork at BVU and it’s our goal to see her mission continue.”
Berry’s teams won 393 games in more than a quarter-century of women’s basketball. Berry, a five-time league coach of the year, also directed volleyball and women’s golf for the Beavers. Now in retirement, she and husband Steve continue to follow the Beavers when they’re not golfing or keeping up with sons Blake and Brock.
“I strived to have an impact on players, and maybe affect others positively along the way,” said Berry, who learned how the endowment also received an early push from the family of former Beaver volleyball player Amy (Blackwood) Smith, a 1998 graduate who traveled from Michigan to the event on Saturday. Smith’s mother, the late Jill Blackwood, served as Berry’s golf coach on a state championship team at Burlington High School in 1980. She remained a lifelong influence for Berry as well.
Berry dabbed tears and waved to the crowd as the Beaver faithful reciprocated with a standing ovation during the halftime tribute. The retired coach then hugged each BVU women’s basketball alum present and thanked them for their devotion to the program and their alma mater.
“I was fortunate to have a front-row seat in the lives of young people and their families for years,” Berry concluded. “I can’t tell you how much this endowment means to me.”
For information on the Janet Berry Leadership Endowment Fund, visit bvu.edu/give or contact BVU Advancement at 712.749.2101 or support@bvu.edu.