"A very successful collegiate head football coach at five schools, Jim Wacker began his collegiate experience as a football player at Valpo.

An offensive and defensive tackle, he earned Second Team All-Indiana Collegiate Conference as a senior in 1959. While Wacker was a player, Valpo compiled a 21-12-2 record (.629 winning percentage). During a 37-year career as a football coach, he established himself as a national championship coach at the NCAA and NAIA levels.

Wacker's Texas Lutheran College (1971-75) teams won NAIA national championships in 1974 and 1975, and his Southwest Texas State squads captured NCAA Division II national titles in 1981 and 1982. Wacker's 1982 Southwest Texas State national championship team finished 14-0 and he was selected College Division Coach of the Year by the American Football Coaches Association. After guiding Southwest Texas from 1979-82, he built an impressive nine-year resume as head coach at Texas Christian University from 1983-91. Wacker was named 1984 National Coach of the Year by ESPN, The Sporting News and United Press International.

In 1992, he became top mentor at the University of Minnesota, where he coached for five seasons until 1996. Wacker also served as head coach at North Dakota State for three seasons (1976-78) and as an assistant at Augustana (S.D.) College (1969-71), Concordia (Neb.) College (1964-69) and Concordia High School in Portland, Oregon (1960-64).

He graduated from Valpo in 1960 with B.S. degrees in geography and physical education. Wacker earned an M.S. in geography in 1967 from Wayne State University and an Ed.D in education from the University of Nebraska in 1971. He was the athletic director at Southwest Texas State from 1998-2001 before retiring.