Winkeler comes to the Hilltop after spending the past two years as the Head Volleyball coach for the Southern Illinois Volleyball Club and a private instructor in the Carbondale, Ill. area.
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Prior to her time in club volleyball, Winkeler was a 12-year veteran in NCAA Division I as a head coach. She spent seven seasons as the head coach at Southern Illinois. During that time she led the Salukis to an 85-89 record, helped establish a school record RPI of 107 in 2009, broke 44 school records, and posted wins over BCS schools Alabama, UCONN, Mississippi State and Central Florida. She coached eight all-conference performers, 14 conference scholar-athletes, and six CoSIDA Academic All-District honorees. Her team also won the AVCA Team Academic Award in all seven seasons.
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Winkeler was also the head coach at Eastern Illinois from 2000 to 2004, and recorded an 82-72 record over five seasons. There she helped revitalize a Panthers program, making the NCAA tournament in 2001 and capturing a share of the Ohio Valley Conference title in 2004.
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Prior to coaching at Eastern Illinois, Winkeler won a junior college national championship in 1999 at Parkland College in Champaign, Ill. She compiled a 428-164-9 record in 11 years at Parkland and earned Coach of the Year honors by both the AVCA and NJCAA.
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Winkeler’s 1999 national championship team was inducted into the Parkland College Hall of Fame in 2007, the same year she was inducted into the NJCAA Hall of Fame.
A Bartelso, Ill. native, Winkeler graduated from Breese Mater Dei High School, received her undergraduate degree in physical education from Millikan University in 1984, and went on to the University of Illinois, where she earned her master’s degree in educational administration in 1991. Winkeler was inducted into the Millikan Athletics Hall of Fame in 2002.
