{"id":12857,"date":"2015-11-28T15:00:34","date_gmt":"2015-11-28T20:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/?p=12857"},"modified":"2015-11-25T15:49:55","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T20:49:55","slug":"stormin-norman-remembered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/stormin-norman-remembered\/","title":{"rendered":"Stormin\u2019 Norman Remembered"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"norman\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Norman Dale Ellenberger, age 83, died exactly where he wanted to be; in his cabin in Watersmeet MI, November 15, 2015.<\/p>\n

He was lovingly raised by his parents Dale and Mildred Ellenberger and grandparents Chester and Clellah Isanogle in Bluffton, Indiana.\u00a0 He graduated from New Haven, Indiana high school where he solidified his passion for competition in sports.\u00a0 Norm was recruited to play football at Butler University where he was a three sport athlete.\u00a0 During his tenure at Butler he was team captain and all conference on Butler\u2019s football team and a two year varsity letter winner.\u00a0 Norm was mentored by Hall of Fame Coach Paul D. \u201cTony\u201d Hinkle on the Butler Bulldogs\u2019 basketball squad, becoming a two year varsity winner.\u00a0 Norm pitched one of five no hitters in Butler baseball history and was named Indiana Collegiate Conference Baseball Most Outstanding Player in 1954.\u00a0 He was also a two time all conference player for baseball, a knuckle ball specialist.\u00a0 Norm was inducted into the Butler Athletic Hall of Fame in 2012.\u00a0 During his speech accepting the award he spoke of his time at Butler as \u201cblessed enough to have the experience\u201d.<\/p>\n

Norm was\u00a0 drafted into the US Army.\u00a0 He met the mother of his children Judith Weld in 1956. They had three beautiful children together; Barbara, Shari, and James.<\/p>\n

During this time Norm was drafted by the Pittsburg Pirates to pitch.\u00a0 He was released after one year after an injury, which led Norm to direct his passion towards coaching.\u00a0 New Haven High School, his alma mater, hired him to coach high school basketball which was the beginning of his legendary coaching career.\u00a0 Norm left New Haven High School in 1963 to coach at Monmouth College, IL. While at Monmouth he coached basketball, football, and baseball.\u00a0 After three seasons at Monmouth Norm was offered the assistant coaching position under Coach Bob King at New Mexico.\u00a0 When King resigned in 1972, Norm\u00a0 was named head coach of the Lobos.\u00a0 As first year head coach he led the Lobos to a 21-6 record.\u00a0 The Lobos went on to win the Western Athletic Conference championships in 1974 and 1978, compiling a \u201cStormin Norman\u201d overall record of 134-62 (.684).\u00a0 Norm was named Western Athletic Conference Coach of the Year 1973-1974.<\/p>\n

Norm\u2019s coaching career extended internationally, conducting coaching clinics in four continents.\u00a0 He was an official guest in China and Taiwan.\u00a0 In 1974 he took his New Mexico team to Tel Aviv, Israel, winning the International University Basketball Games for the United States.\u00a0 He coached the Korean and Japanese Olympic teams.<\/p>\n

Norm spent time coaching the Albuquerque Silvers and Professional Women\u2019s WBA.<\/p>\n

Throughout his life\u00a0 Albuquerque remained close in his heart.\u00a0 His memories and stories of players, friends and family were always a part of him even after moving away from the area.<\/p>\n

In 1986 Don Haskins hired Norm as\u00a0 lead assistant at UTEP, coaching for four years, one of those years as head coach. \u00a0 Bob Knight hired Norm in 1990 as assistant for the Indiana Hoosiers until 2000 when Norm accepted an assistant coach position for the Chicago Bulls.\u00a0 It was during Norm\u2019s time at UTEP and Indiana that his love of Muncho Lake, British Columbia began.\u00a0 After discovering Muncho Lake, Norm began a career as a fishing guide in the Northern Rockies of British Columbia during the off season.\u00a0 His last trip to British Columbia was this year fishing with dear friends catching Lake Trout, Pike, laughing, talking, and telling many stories of his extraordinary experiences of his life.<\/p>\n

In 2012 Norm was honored to once again coach with his lifetime friend John Whisenant for the New York Liberty.<\/p>\n

During the last 15 years Norm coached numerous high school basketball teams which was the driving force of his passion for the game and life.\u00a0 \u201dEveryone has an itch to scratch\u201d, he would say about continuing to coach until his last day on earth.\u00a0 His passion for teaching players about the game extended to life lessons, always guiding and teaching, always offering his time and talent unselfishly, contributing to what he had to share.<\/p>\n

Norm is survived by Judi, the mother of his children.\u00a0 Daughter Barbara (Steve) Dobson of Bellingham, WA.\u00a0 Daughter Shari Ellenberger of Seattle, WA.\u00a0 Son James (Suzanne) Ellenberger of New York City. Grandchildren; Shane, Gabe, Sharon, Billy, Dale, Juliette, Samantha and Christiana.<\/p>\n

Norm spent his last years with his sweetheart Lori.\u00a0 He was very close to Lori\u2019s children Philip, Peter, and Ricki Ann.\u00a0 Kiva, his chocolate lab is already missing him, as Norm would refer to her as \u201cthe brown dog\u201d.<\/p>\n

Norm is also survived by his cousin Mary Ann Ellenberger of Indiana, as well as extended relatives in the New Haven, Bluffton, and Fort Wayne area.<\/p>\n

A memorial celebration of Norm\u2019s life will be held December 5, 2015 at the Lakeland Union High School in Minocqua, WI.\u00a0 Gathering to start at Noon. \u00a0 Service at 2:00 PM.\u00a0 Reception to follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Norman Dale Ellenberger, age 83, died exactly where he wanted to be; in his cabin in Watersmeet MI, November 15,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2301],"tags":[316,4208,4857,516,4854,220,231,4855,4856],"class_list":["post-12857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-news","tag-career","tag-coach","tag-coaching","tag-dale","tag-ellenberger","tag-new-haven","tag-norman","tag-stormin","tag-stormin-norman"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/norman.jpg?fit=318%2C478&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2YQd9-3ln","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 16:21:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}