The Augustana College men’s basketball program has a new man in charge. 2001 Augie graduate Steve Schafer was announced as the Viking’s head coach earlier this week. He takes over for the highly successful Grey Giovanine, who retired in May. Giovanine is the all-time winningest coach in Augustana history, winning 433 games in his 21 years as head coach of the Viking’s men’s basketball team. During those 21 years, Giovanine won ten CCIW conference championships, including National Tournament runnerup finishes in 2015 and 2017. Injuries limited Schafer’s playing career at Augustana but led to a student-assistant position under Giovanine in his senior year. Before taking the head coaching job at Augie, he served as men’s basketball coach and director of athletics at Benedictine-Mesa University in Arizona for the past five years. Before that, he was the men’s basketball coach at Fontbonne University in St. Louis for three seasons.
