Michele Durand enters her 12th season as the head coach of the Ohio Northern women’s basketball program. She also serves as a assistant professor in the ONU department of human performance and sport sciences.

Last season, Durand led Northern to a 21-6 overall record, with a second placefinish in the Ohio Athletic Conference with an 14-4 mark. She also guided the Polar Bears to the school’s first OAC Tournament Championship apperance since 1988.

During the 2007-08 campaign, Durand took the program to new heights, going 19-7 overall and 14-4 (2nd) in the OAC.

For her efforts that season, Durand was named the Russell Athletic/Women’s Basketball Coaches Association Division III Region Six Coach of the Year.

During her time at ONU, Durand was named OAC Co-Coach of the Year (2006-07) and on Dec. 22, 2006 against Earlham (Ind.), she won her 200th career game. Durand now has 273 wins for her career.

The Toledo native came to Ohio Northern after 11 seasons as head coach at Bluffton College, where she was the school’s all-time winningest coach.

She was named Coach of the Year in the Western Buckeye Collegiate Conference in 1990-91 and in the Association of Mideast Colleges in 1995-96 while at Bluffton.

Durand served in other capacities during her time at Bluffton, as she also coached the women’s tennis and cross country teams, and served as the associate director of athletics and an assistant professor of HPER during her tenure at Bluffton.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in health, physical education and recreation from Bluffton in 1988 and received a master’s degree from Bowling Green State in physical education in 1990.

As a student-athlete for the Beavers, Durand was a two-time All-Western Buckeye Collegiate Conference selection. Durand is 16th all-time in career assists and is 32nd on the school’s scoring list with 609 points.

Durand led her 1995-96 Bluffton squad to a 16-9 record, the best win total by any BC women’s basketball team in 42 years of play. Her team also won the Association of Midwest Colleges regular season and tournament championships.

She has also been inducted into the Toledo Whitmer High School Athletic Hall of Fame for her accomplishments in basketball, cross country and track during her prep days.

Women's Basketball under Durand