Bearcat Day of Green initiatives include challenge to support scholarship paying tribute to athletic trainer, strength coach

As Northwest Missouri State University, its alumni and friends count the days to the annual Bearcat Day of Green fundraising event, April 2-3, an array of gift-matching opportunities exist for donors to support programs and people who matter most to them.

One of those is the Joe and Kelly Quinlin Scholarship Challenge issued by Dr. Terry Long, the director of Northwest’s School of Health Science and Wellness, and his wife, Anne, to honor the Quinlins’ lasting contributions to the University.

If 58 donors contribute to the Joe and Kelly Quinlin Scholarship Fund – in honor of the 58 points scored by the Bearcat football team in their 1999 NCAA Division II national championship victory – the Longs will make a special donation to the scholarship. Their goal is to create an endowed scholarship to be awarded annually to a student in the School of Health Science and Wellness, with preference given to a student with career aspirations in athletic training or strength and conditioning.

“Joe and Kelly are as much a part of the academic family as they are the athletics family,” Dr. Terry Long said. “Their careers on the sidelines of the field, court, pitch and track are legendary. Their impact in the classroom is even longer lasting. Plus, they both have been awesome mentors to student interns who work in their respective areas. Creating this scholarship is the perfect way to honor their dedication to lifelong student growth and success.”

Joe Quinlin has been Northwest’s head strength and conditioning coach since 2008. He was a member of the Bearcats’ 1998 and 1999 national championship football teams on his way to completing a bachelor’s degree in corporate recreation and therapeutic wellness at Northwest in 2000.

After earning a master’s degree in physical education with a strength and conditioning emphasis from West Virginia University in 2003, he returned to Maryville and was a personal trainer until joining the Northwest athletics staff. In 2023, he received a Student Impact Award at Northwest for his work as a strength and conditioning coach.

Kelly Archer Quinlin graduated from Northwest in 2000 with a bachelor’s degree in biology and psychology and added a master’s degree in athletic training from West Virginia University in 2003.

She began her professional career with the Northwest athletic training staff in 2003 and was head athletic trainer from 2008 until stepping away in 2021 to spend more time with her family. Most recently, she opened her own sports medicine clinic, KQ Rehab + Performance in Maryville. In 2018, the Northwest Alumni Association honored her with its Young Alumni Award.

In addition, the Quinlins have served as adjunct instructors at Northwest. Kelly regularly taught care and prevention of athletic injuries, and Joe continues to teach theories and fundamentals of strength and conditioning.

The Quinlins are team players who are motivated by helping others succeed, said Mel Tjeerdsma, head coach of the Bearcat football program from 1994 to 2010 and Northwest’s director of athletics from 2013 to 2018. Not only do they care deeply about the student-athletes with whom they work and maintain trust with Bearcat coaches, Joe and Kelly are always learning and seeking new methods to help student-athletes get the most out of their abilities, Tjeerdsma said.

“There’s not much you can say that probably hasn’t been said about them,” Tjeerdsma said. “First of all, they’re great people – very caring, very high energy. To both of them, it’s not a job, it’s a passion.”

So much of the couple’s work, however, is influenced by the Bearcat coaches, faculty and staff who came before them and mentored them.

For Kelly, who grew up in Maryville as the daughter of a nurse, Northwest provided an affordable opportunity to pursue her interest in physical therapy. Almost immediately as a college freshman, she found her way to the Bearcat athletics training room and began working under the guidance of D.C. Colt, Northwest’s head athletic trainer from 1981 until his retirement in 2008.

“If I wasn’t given the opportunities that D.C. gave me, I would not be who I am today,” Kelly said, recalling the opportunities she had as a first-year student to travel with the Bearcat track and field team. “Just having the autonomy to learn and to mess up, but then to grow through that, and for him to trust me in so many things, I just can never thank him enough for what he did for me.”

A native of Ankeny, Iowa, Joe came to Northwest to join his older brother and landed a spot on the Bearcat football team as a walk-on player. He worked his way up to becoming a key member of its special teams and defensive unit. At the same time, he found a niche in the weight room, growing confidence and improving himself.

“You kind of get knocked down a level and then you kind of build yourself back up,” he said. “Lifting was always kind of my release.”

With gratitude for the opportunities they received at Northwest, the Quinlins also value the challenges they had to overcome. They strive to provide the kind of support they received as Northwest undergraduates to today’s students.

“As an athletic trainer and a strength coach, it’s a little different than a coach,” Kelly said. “We’re the people that the athletes feel like they can be vulnerable with. So it wasn’t uncommon for me to be called ‘Mama Kelly’ or for us to be the people that people just go to lean on, to talk about things and then ask for advice.”

Still, the Quinlins also set high expectations. “And if they didn’t meet it, they knew it,” Kelly said. “We rarely went to the coach about it, but if I had to, I would. There was a lot of growing up and seeing, especially freshman to sophomore year, how young adults are growing up and learning who they are. But we grew up with them.”

These days, after decades around Bearcat athletics, one of the things the Quinlins enjoy most is hearing from past students and graduate assistants about the successes they are having away from Northwest.

By contributing to the Joe and Kelly Quinlin Scholarship Challenge, Northwest alumni and friends can show appreciation for the Quinlins while helping to endow a scholarship that will benefit a Northwest student interested in the path that has sustained the couple.

“It’s an opportunity to make a difference, and that’s what we’re about,” Kelly said.

Individuals and organizations are invited to participate in the Bearcat Day of Green by visiting https://dayofgreen.nwmissouri.edu/ anytime between 9 a.m. Wednesday, April 2, and 4:45 p.m. Thursday, April 3.