SWIC hires NJCAA Hall of Famer as first coach of Blue Storm football team
Southwestern Illinois College took the next step in its effort to bring football back to Belleville’s Township Stadium with the hiring of a head coach.
SWIC on Wednesday announced the hiring of Tom Minnick as its first head football coach.
Minnick has more than three decades of coaching experience and most recently led Garden City Community College in Kansas. He has served as a head coach at three junior and community colleges, guiding teams to multiple national championship appearances, and was inducted into the NJCAA Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2021.
Minnick said he plans to build the Blue Storm program around mentorship, academic accountability and personal growth.
“I believe the role of a coach extends beyond wins and losses,” Minnick said in a statement. “Mentorship, leadership development, and teaching life lessons through the game are core values I bring to every program.”
SWIC announced in April its plans to launch an intercollegiate football program in fall 2027.
Minnick will spend the coming year recruiting and setting up the program’s structure, the college said.
Robert Tebbe, SWIC’s vice president of enrollment development and institutional planning, said the new program benefits from a “plug-and-play” situation where a stadium and other infrastructure needed for football already exist.
The Blue Storm has a ready-made home at the Southwestern Illinois Justice and Workforce Development Campus on Main Street. It was originally built for Belleville Township High School in the 1930s by the Works Progress Administration and later refitted by the former Lindenwood University-Belleville athletic program.
“The Campus” is managed by SWIC and owned by the City of Belleville, and houses some city offices, the SWIC Police Academy, select Southern Illinois University Edwardsville programs and more.
The city invested $543,000 in replacing Lindenwood’s notorious maroon and gray turf with a new artificial surface, complete with a City of Belleville logo at the 50-yard line and the words“Southwestern Illinois College” spanning about 70 yards across the field.
The Campus also has dorms to house athletes.
“We have all of the facilities, so this was a no-brainer,” said SWIC Board of Trustees Chair Steve Campo. “(Lindenwood) left the blueprint there wide open.”
Tebbe estimated the cost of initially implementing the sport will be between $1 million and $2 million, with annual costs between $750,000 and $1 million.