Now entering his eighth season as the head coach of the Concordia University women’s basketball program, Paul Fessler has built a program with a winning tradition. In 2006-07, Fessler had arguably his finest coaching performance. After the team started the year a disappointing 2-7, the Golden Bears rallied to win 15 of 16 including a 10 game winning streak and had won 20 of 22 by the time their season finally ended in a dramatic 92-89 overtime loss to Nebraska-Kearney in the NCAA regional.

For the first time in his distinguished seven seasons as head coach at Concordia, Fessler was named the NSIC Coach of the Year, capturing the NSIC Regular Season Championship with a 15-3 league record before capturing the NSIC Tournament Championship - the first time that Concordia has swept the league titles.

The strong finish propelled Concordia to a 22-10 overall finish, reaching the 20 win milestone for the sixth straight season while earning their fifth consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament.

Under Fessler, Concordia has won four Northern Sun titles, two in the regular season and two conference tournaments. They have reached the NCAA regional semifinals four consecutive years and have one sweet sixteen appearance.

In 2005-06, the Golden Bears set another milestone for the program, finishing with the 11th-highest grade point average in the nation with a 3.46 team GPA, marking the first time CU was recognized in the WBCA Top 25 Academic Programs.

Fessler, the seventh head coach in CU women's basketball history, has accumulated a 150-63 record at Concordia including an 84-32 record in the Northern Sun. He is just the second coach in CU history to reach 100 career wins.

In 2003-04, the Bears set a school record for wins, going 28-4 and were ranked in the WBCA Top 25 for a majority of the season, finishing in the #11 spot in the Final Top 25 Poll. Their 27-3 regular season record was good enough to earn the #1 ranking in the North Central Regional Tournament along with the right to host it. In the regional tournament played at the Gangelhoff Center, the Golden Bears defeated Minnesota Duluth in the quarterfinals to earn their first NCAA tournament win before dropping the semifinal match-up to defending National Champion South Dakota State.

They did one game better in the big dance in 2004-05, defeating Metro State in the first round before upsetting host North Dakota 78-76 in Grand Forks to advance to the NCAA Sweet Sixteen, just a win shy from the regional title. 

The Bears finished the 2004-05 season 25-8 and ranked #20 in the Final WBCA poll. In 2005-06, the Bears improved their NCAA Tournament record under Fessler to 4-4, defeating NSIC regular season and tournament champion Wayne State in the opening round before falling to St. Cloud State in the semifinals.

Fessler was named interim head coach at Concordia on August 15, 2000 and inherited a program that struggled to post double-digit wins in a season for nearly a decade. In his first season, Fessler guided the Bears to a 12 win season as CU was the surprise of the Northern Sun. A key stepping stone for Fessler in his first year was defeating perennial power Minnesota Duluth for the first time in 23 years. Fessler was named permanent head coach following that victory on February 15, 2001 and finished 8-10 in the NSIC.

During his first full season as the full-time head coach, the Golden Bears continued to ascend, setting a then-program record for wins with 22 and gaining even more respect in the NSIC with a second place finish and a 13-5 league record.

The following year, Fessler's Bears took another step forward as they earned their first trip to the NCAA Tournament in program history and posted back-to-back 20-win seasons for the first time since the 1984-85 and 1985-86 seasons, finishing 21-8.

Prior to coaching for the Golden Bears, Fessler began his college coaching career when he was hired to coach the Anoka-Ramsey Community College program in 1996. During his tenure at ARCC, Fessler turned the Golden Rams into a national power. In four seasons as head coach, Fessler turned out an astonishing record of 101-18.  His teams claimed back-to-back-to-back NJCAA III National Championships from 1997-99 and finished second in 2000. Fessler's ARCC teams held the No.1 national ranking from November, 1997 through January, 1999.  Anoka-Ramsey's 1998 championship team averaged 88 points per game, breaking the national scoring record. He had six all-Americans at ARCC.

Fessler's coaching experience began with coaching stints at the middle school and high school levels in Cedar Falls, Iowa and Fort Worth, Tex. Coach Fessler's head coaching career began at St. Anthony Village High School, in Minneapolis, MN, in 1993. There, he inherited a program that had eight consecutive losing seasons.  In three seasons at St. Anthony, Fessler's squads posted a 45-27 record.  Fessler also has some AAU Basketball coaching success. In the summer of 1999, he guided the North Tartan AAU All-Star team to a Gold Medal at the Junior Olympics in Cleveland, Ohio.

Fessler is a native a Calumet, Iowa and earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Northern Iowa in 1988.

College:  Earned his bachelor’s degree in 1988 from Northern Iowa and a master’s degree at Concordia University in Organizational Management in 2005.

High School: A 1983 graduate of Sutherland High School in Sutherland, Iowa.  Lettered in football, basketball and baseball.

Resides: White Bear Lake, Minn. with wife Shelly and daughter Jade (11).

Fessler Year-By-Year Coaching Records
		Overall			Northern Sun
Year	School	W	L	Pct	W	L	Pct
1996-97	Anoka-Ramsey CC*	25	4	.862
1997-98	Anoka-Ramsey CC*	27	2	.931
1998-99	Anoka-Ramsey CC*	23	6	.793
1999-00	Anoka-Ramsey CC*	26	6	.813
2000-01	Concordia University	12	15	.444	8	10	.444
2001-02	Concordia University	22	7	.759	13	5	.722
2002-03	Concordia University%	21	8	.724	14	4	.778
2003-04	Concordia University$%	28	4	.875	15	1	.938
2004-05	Concordia University^%	25	8	.758	10	4	.714
2005-06	Concordia University&	20	11	.645	9	5	.643
2006-07	Concordia University$^%	22	10	.687	15	3	.833
Totals	Overall (11 years)	251	81	.756
Totals	Concordia (7 years)	150	63	.704	84	32	.688
* - won NJCAA III Championship # - runner-up, NJCAA III $ - NSIC Regular Season Champions ^ - NSIC Tournament Champions % - NCAA Tournament appearance