Rusty Rogers enters his sixth year at the helm of the Arizona Christian University women’s
basketball program in the 2024-25 season. He is just five victories away from becoming the
winningest coach in program history and already achieved that distinction at two other
universities (Dyke College-OH and Wilmington University-DE) prior to coming to Glendale.
In all, he has been a head coach for 40 seasons with 772 victories, including 25 seasons and
434 wins at the collegiate level. His coaching career began at his alma mater Dyke College
(OH) in 1982 where he started the women’s basketball program shortly after graduating in 1979.
The program never had a losing season and qualified for the NAIA National Tournament in its
fifth season of existence. He followed that up with an impressive four-year run at Wilmington
(DE) that included 105 victories and three consecutive appearances in the NAIA National
Tournament—all for a program that never had a winning season.
Rogers next stop was at Western Oregon University where he quickly led the Wolves to two
consecutive NAIA Division II National Championships (1995 & 1996). Before WOU entered the
NCAA Division II ranks in 1999, he led the team to four NAIA National Tournaments. For his
efforts at WOU, Rogers was named NAIA National Coach of the Year two times.
From 2000 to 2013, he coached at the scholastic level in Arizona and Texas. He coached his
daughter, Miranda, for four seasons at Houston Christian High School before he re-entered the
college coaching ranks with his daughter at Concordia University Chicago. Miranda became the
CUC all-time leading three-point shooting scorer while the Cougars had three winning seasons
over the four years Rogers coached there. The winning seasons were the first in over 30 years
at the school and included going from 2-23 prior to Rogers’ arrival to 17 wins the next
season—the fourth-largest one-year turnaround in the entire country at any level (2014-15).
Rogers has coached at least one All-American at every one of his collegiate stops (8 total) and
two NAIA National Players of the Year. When the Firestorm entered the 2024 NAIA National
Tournament in March, 2024, it was Rogers’ ninth year coaching in the tournament representing
four different institutions.
Rogers earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Dyke College
and a Master’s degree in Post-secondary Education Administration from Cleveland State
University. He and his wife, Anita, reside in Scottsdale and attend Christ Church Lutheran in
Phoenix.
