COACHING STAFF Mark Franke has been involved with the IPFW men’s volleyball team in official and unofficial capacities since the team’s formation in 1981. Since 1989, Franke has been a volunteer assistant coach with the team and has been part of all six of IPFW’s NCAA Final Four appearances. He has no volleyball experience or background, having learned the sport on the IPFW bench, and takes pride in being known as the most volleyball-ignorant coach in the NCAA. Still, Franke is an integral part of IPFW’s winning strategy because of his unique ability to record and analyze an opponent’s tendencies throughout the course of a match, and then predicting the next play they will run. He is well known across the country for the giant, six-sheet clipboard he uses on the bench, lovingly named El Guapo (see left) and not so lovingly carried by a freshman player when the team travels. He is quite popular with the players, but only because he distributes the team’s meal money on the road.
MARK FRANKE 23rd SEASON
A 1973 graduate of IPFW with a major in economics, Franke has been employed at IPFW for the past 33 years. He currently serves the university as associate vice chancellor for enrollment management, a subject he knows even less about than volleyball. Franke has also earned two master’s degrees in business at IPFW. Coach Franke met and married his wife Tommy while they were undergraduates at IPFW. Even so, he still encourages young people to go to college. The long suffering Mrs. Franke, who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from IPFW, is principal and 2nd grade teacher at Ascension Lutheran School and serves as official scorekeeper for both the men’s and women’s volleyball teams. They have two adult children who broke their father’s wallet by attending colleges other than at IPFW and their mother’s heart by moving out of state. Both have redeemed themselves, however, by providing grandchildren who are now regular recipients of their grandmother’s credit card largesse.
A new, but familiar face on the IPFW sideline, Nate Kitrush returns to his alma mater from Penn State, where he served as Director of Volleyball Operations for the Nittany Lion women’s squad. A graduate of Fort Wayne’s Northrop High School and 2008 IPFW graduate, Kitrush played one season for the Volleydons before moving over to the managerial side. Kitrush’s coaching career also includes a volunteer stint with the Purdue Boilermakers’ women’s team. He resides in Fort Wayne.
Nate Kitrush 2ND SEASON