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Nick Nurse, head coach for the NBA’s Toronto Raptors has come a long way since having dreams of being an NBA star. After playing at Kuemper Catholic High School in Carroll, Iowa, and later being recruited by the University of Northern Iowa, Nurse got his first head coaching job at Grand View in 1991. Lou Yacinich, the former athletics director of GV athletics and current baseball coach, hired Nurse. 

 “He was the right guy for the job,” Yacinich said. 

Yacinich said he could pick out winners every once in a while, and Nurse was one of them. Nurse also had the skillset and experience for the job because of his love for the game and how he would prepare his team for each game. Nurse once sat down and recorded every single game of the NBA playoffs so he could break down and analyze the film. This technique allowed him to be able to see the game in multiple ways to better prepare his team for it’s opponents. 

“I was on my way to a coaching career,” Nurse said. “It was a challenge, but it spurred me into working hard and it was a good experience.” 

Nurse said he learned a lot from his high school and college coaches. He said they taught him the fundamentals of the game.

“Going through the building process was critical to my coaching, and I could share those things with my players,” Nurse said. 

Yacinich mentioned that Nurse was positive at all times,  understood the game and could explain it to anybody. This led to a great coaching style and relationship between Nurse and his players. Nurse coached GV men’s basketball from 1991 to 1993 where he was able to re-establish the basketball team as a brand new coach.

“He was a fierce competitor, and even though I don’t know an exact record of Nick Nurse games at Grand View, he wasn’t a guy that took losing very well,” Yacinich said. “You sometimes didn’t want to be around him after a loss because he wanted to win them all; he was just a fierce competitor.” 

Mike Born was Nurse’s assistant coach in 1991. Born described Nurse’s personality on and off the court as a terrific person, a hard worker and someone who was super motivated. Born said that these qualities are what lead Nurse to his success today. 

Born and Nurse knew each other through college basketball while Nurse was playing at UNI and Born was playing at Iowa State University. The two eventually ended up side by side at GV.

“For the next two years, I lived in his basement,” Born said. “It was part of the deal. (We) spent a lot of time together over the two years. It was a terrific experience to coach together, recruiting and traveling on the buses.” 

Born said all the work and coaching Nurse was able to get from GV, the British league, the D League and now with the Toronto Raptors is what led him to be a great head coach. 

Born said Nurse was more of a defense-first coach at GV, but with the Raptors, he has become more of an offensive coach. 

“He was one of those guys who just loved the game and had total energy for it,” former player Shane Murphy said.  

Nick Nurse continued to coach after his time at GV and move on to coach for the University of South Dakota, where he lead his team into the Elite Eight in 1994. 

Nurse eventually stepped away from college basketball in 1999 to become a head coach for the Iowa Energy, which was a team in the NBA Development League also known as the D League. 

“I was able to win a title with the Iowa Energy in 2011, which was a four-year-long process,” Nurse said. “It was really fun watching the city get behind the team throughout the playoffs.” 

Nurse said that all of his coaching experience -— at the college level, overseas and in the Developmental League — is what made him successful today. 

 “You’re going to make a lot of mistakes, but you’re going to learn a lot from your mistakes,” Nurse said. 

Nurse was able to show that almost 30 years of coaching and hard work paid off when the Toronto Raptors won the 2019 NBA Championship — the first-ever championship for the franchise. 

“Everybody said there won’t be a moment like it, and they were right,” Nurse said. “It’s been amazing.”