University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire

Scott Nesbit was a two-time conference singles champion and three-time conference doubles champion and participated in three NAIA national tournaments. Nesbit, who prepped at Edina East High School, was the Blugold Scholar-Athlete Award winner in 1978, at a time when only one student-athlete was picked for the entire program each year. He was also an NAIA Academic All-American tennis award recipient that year. Nesbit contributed to four consecutive conference tennis championships by winning the No. 2 singles championship as both a sophomore and junior.  He also was the No. 3 doubles champ as a freshman and the No. 1 doubles champ as both a sophomore and a senior. He compiled career records of 71-35 in singles play and 70-34 in doubles competition. Three times, he was named to the NAIA All-District 14 tennis team. The Blugolds also won the NAIA District 14 championship three times, advancing to the NAIA nationals in Kansas City, Missouri where they placed 15th, 16th and 14th.  During his four years on the varsity, the Blugolds amassed a 50-24 dual meet record.

After graduating from UWEC in 1979, Nesbit began his teaching and coaching career at Chapel Hill Academy in Deephaven, Minnesota. He spent five years there before moving to the Chicago area where he taught and coached for five more years. During that time he earned his master’s degree in sports administration at the University of Illinois-Chicago. He also coached women’s tennis at Wheaton College for two years and men’s tennis at North Central College for one season. He also was a tennis instructor at four different racquet clubs. In 1989, he took his current position of physical education instructor and men’s and women’s tennis coach at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. At the time of his induction, he had coached over 800 men’s and women’s matches there, winning nearly two-thirds of them. He was the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Coach of the Year four times. He continues to play in United States Tennis Association individual and team tournaments, which he has been doing since 1973 and was a ranked player from 1973-80 and 1992-95. He also still works as a tennis clinician and instructor at various clinics and camps. Nesbit has served as a chapel speaker at St. Olaf since 1990 and as the faculty advisor for the Fellowship of Christian Oles Group since 1989.  Nesbit is an expert in fly tying and fly fishing which led him to become involved in a local stream restoration project