With 61 years of coaching combined, more than 770 career wins total and one grateful university, Pete Hovland and Greg Kampe were inducted into the Hollie L. Lepley Hall of Honor.

On Friday evening, select alumni, student athletes and many others met together to induct the men’s and women’s swimming head coach and men’s basketball head coach.

“Oakland as a community has provided a pretty nice way of life and environment to grow, thrive and be successful,” Hovland said. “It allows people to stay long enough to recruit some of these accolades.”

Since his arrival in 1979, Hovland has become the most successful coach in OU history with four national titles in Division II and 15 top-three finishes in 18 years.

On Jan. 14, Hovland earned his 300th career victory with wins over both Cleveland State and Xavier.

Hovland’s consistent success has allowed for OU to become not only a Summit League powerhouse with 12 championships, but also to grow into a dominant Mid-Major program with high expectations for the future.

That very success has resulted in student-athletes buying into his coaching mentality and wanting to be a part of what Hovland has built.

“If you can find a group of young people and convince them that there is something out there that is bigger and better, and that is worthwhile, it’s very uplifting,” Hovland said. “You’ll find a lot of people that will buy into that and we’ve been lucky over the years to find that.”

“We are always big on not just being a team but being a family,” senior swimmer Scott Yarbrough said. “Hovland is always trying to bring everyone to their best ability instead of just worrying about wins and losses.”

According to Yarbrough, one of the great traits about Hovland is his approach to recruiting that is different than the more prominent universities.

“(Hovland) sees past the times and recruits those people who can get better,” Yarbrough said. “They may not be the fastest in their first two years here, but by the time they graduate, they’ve become a significant member of the team.”

Like Hovland, fellow Lepley Hall of Honor inductee and men’s basketball coach Greg Kampe has taken Oakland from a top Division II team to an up-and-coming Division I Mid-Major program.

With 27 seasons under his belt, the five-time Summit League Coach of the Year Kampe has led the Golden Grizzlies to consecutive Summit League championships and NCAA tournament berths.

“I didn’t do anything. Seriously,” Kampe said. “There’s no I. It’s what we’ve done here as a group of coaches and athletes. It’s always been about being together as an athletic program. If I’ve done anything right, I’ve hired good people.”

Kampe has also coached OU to a 68-18 league-record over the past five seasons, putting the Grizzlies at the No. 1 spot over the other D-1 schools in the state of Michigan.

With previous offers to coach at Central Michigan and Dayton, Kampe has a simple reason why he decided to stay at Oakland.

“Oakland is just a place on a map, with streets and buildings, but what makes Oakland special is the people,” Kampe said. “Everybody asks ‘why are you still there?’ It’s the special people from the top to the bottom.”

Along with Hovland, Kampe recruits a certain type of player in a certain type of way.

“Most coaches when they are on a visit try to impress you and treat you extra nice,” junior forward Drew Valentine said. “(Kampe) was real from the start and treated me as if I was already on the team.”

While success on the court requires great athletes, Kampe requires them to be students first, and athletes second. Because of that, the Grizzlies have the state’s highest graduation rate and are among the nation’s elite in NCAA Academic Progress Reports, which measures a school’s ability to graduate players.

“(Coach Kampe) keeps himself and the program to a high standard,” Valentine said. “He doesn’t go easy or baby anyone. That’s what has kept him successful … he preaches a well rounded athlete not only on the court but in the classroom.”

Players come and go, but Hovland and Kampe’s commitment to the university and the “we not I” philosophy has stayed the same.

“It’s been an unbelievable ride to be part of,” Kampe said. “Have we brought recognition to the university? Yeah, I think we’ve done a good job.”