Abe Woldeslassie spent seven years in St. Paul, guiding Macalester’s men’s basketball program to heights never previously imagined. The Scots reached a MIAC tournament title game and experienced multiple 15-win seasons under the head coach.
But when the Minneapolis native was contacted by a fellow Minnesotan about an opportunity to get back into Division I coaching, he felt the need to go.
Tim Bergstraser is a 34-year-old St. Cloud native who led Minnesota State-Moorhead to three straight Division II NCAA tournament appearances. In the offseason, Denver University hired Bergstraser to lead its program.
Bergstraser asked Woldeslassie to join him on his staff.
Woldeslassie obliged, noting Bergstraser was someone he knew and trusted. He liked that Denver is a private school with high academic expectations, like Macalester, and is in a large, pro-sports metro area like the Twin Cities.
Woldeslassie noted there would never be a “right” time to leave Macalester, but this made sense.
“I just turned 40 in October, and I felt like if I’m going to make this move, Macalester is in a great place, I’m leaving on great terms,” he said. “And not that it was ever going south, but I never wanted it to get to a point where you overstay your welcome.”
He enjoyed the process of he and fellow coach Conner Nord building Macalester from the ground up, and saw a chance to do something similar at Denver, a program that’s never been to the Division I NCAA Tournament.
“I thought, ‘Hey, it’d be cool if we were the first here,’” Woldeslassie said.
The Pioneers are off to a good start. A program that won just 11 games a season ago is 8-8 this season, already sporting impressive wins against the likes of Northern Colorado and Colorado State ahead of its Summit League conference opener Sunday in, yes, St. Paul.
A tilt with conference-favorite St. Thomas is a homecoming of sorts for many people in the program. Two players and three coaches — including associate coach Spenser Bland, a Plymouth native and Bethel alum — are Minnesota natives.
But it’s especially meaningful to Woldeslassie, for a number of reasons. He was a head coach in St. Paul just last season. He spent the first two years of his collegiate career playing junior varsity for St. Thomas, where he was recruited to by then-assistant coach Johnny Tauer — now a friend — before transferring to Macalester.
Woldeslassie has only seen photos of St. Thomas’ new arena and savors the shot to coach a game in the building on Sunday.
“We’ll have a lot of friends and family in the stands,” he said. “I think there will be a lot of red in the stands of the new arena.”
This may be Denver’s only trip to St. Paul in the foreseeable future. The Pioneers are replacing Gonzaga in the West Coast Conference next season, a move that figures to bring more prominence and visibility to the program but also more challenges. That’s one of the best mid-major conferences in the country.
Early returns suggest the new staff is built to handle it, just another adjustment for the Pioneers coaches who were thrown into the turbulence that is Division I athletics. Woldeslassie last coached at this level in 2018 as an assistant at Siena before taking the job at Macalester.
This was all before looser NCAA transfer portal rules, Name, Image and Likeness opportunities, revenue sharing and massive conference realignment.
“You almost couldn’t have envisioned, in 2018, what’s going on today,” Woldeslassie noted. “I think people would have laughed at you if you said this was going to happen.”
But it’s reality, one that makes quickly rebuilding a perhaps more feasible and more complex at the same time.
“It’s new for all of us, and it seems like every day it’s changing,” Woldeslassie said. “It’s like, ‘This is the rule today,’ and a week from now, that rule may not even exist. So, we have to adapt.”
Denver doesn’t have any high school kids committed for next season, its focus currently centered on transfers, junior college and international players. And the Pioneers won’t be able to afford every player they’d like to recruit.
But Woldeslassie thinks Bergstraser is doing a great job guiding the roster construction and connecting with those already in the program.
“I think we’ve done a great job getting the right people,” Woldeslassie said. “We’ve had some really great wins already this year, and I think we’re going to have a really good season in the Summit.”
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