(Monday, March 31; Sioux Center, Iowa) Collegeinsider.com has announced its national coach of the year award winners and Dordt's Brian Van Haaften is the recipient of 2025 Don Meyer National Coach of the Year award, presented annually to the top head coach in NAIA college basketball.

Watch as Coach Van Haaften Is Notified

Van Haaften led Dordt University to a 28-4 record, a No. 6 ranking and 2nd round appearance in the NAIA Men's Basketball Championship. The 28 wins is tied for the second most all-time in program history.

"When all these things come together, special things happen," said Joe Dwyer, President of CollegeInsider.com. "It was a special season for Brian Van Haaften who has had a lot of special seasons in his illustrious career. Everybody want to win, but mentoring young men to win in life is more important to Coach Van Haaften."

Van Haaften was named Great Plains Athletic Conference Coach of the Year after leading the Defenders to the regular season GPAC title and an 18-2 overall mark and the program's fourth straight NAIA National Championship berth. Over the past four years Dordt has posted a 93-33 record and Van Haaften's record at Dordt in seven seasons is 152-63. His overall collegiate coaching record is 566-241.

VAN HAAFTEN AT DORDT

Season	Overall	GPAC
2018-19	19-13	10-10
2019-20	22-9	13-17
2020-21	18-8	13-17
2021-22	20-11	12-8
2022-23	26-7	14-6
2023-24	19-11	12-8
2024-25	28-4	18-2

 
DON MEYER AWARD WINNERS

Season	Coach	Institution
2024-25	Brian Van Haaften	Dordt
2023-24	Scott Moore	Grace
2022-23	Ted Albert	Indiana Tech
2021-22	Stacy Hollowell	Loyola New Orleans
2020-21	Delano Thomas	Shawnee State
2019-20	Jim Sykes	Morningside
2018-19	Jeff Rutter	Arizona Christian
2017-18	Craig Doty	Graceland
2016-17	Tony Ingle	Dalton State
2015-16	Delton Deal	York
2014-15	Larry Cordaro	LSU-Alexandria
2013-14	Jason Shelton	Freed Hardeman
2012-13	Branda Rinta	Lewis Clark State
2011-12	Paul Peck	Lindsey Wilson
2010-11	Andy Sharpe	Martin Methodist

 
ABOUT THE AWARD
The Don Meyer Award is named in honor of the sport's winningest coaches. In 38 seasons at Hamline, Lipscomb and Northern State, Don Meyer compiled an astounding 923-324 record. He led Lipscomb to the NAIA national championship in 1986 and coached the two highest-scoring players in the history of college basketball, John Pierce and Philip Hutcheson.

His 1989-90 team at Lipscomb won a record 41 games and was the highest scoring team in college basketball history.

In 2010, he received the John Bunn Award at the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Meyer retired from coaching in February 2010. Coach Meyer lost his long battle with cancer on May 18, 2014, at the age of 69.