Women's Basketball Coaching Staff
Coach Wagner has guided 18 players to All-Illinois Skyway Collegiate Conference First Team status.
Dana Wagner, Head Coach
This season marks Dana Wagner’s 13th year overall leading Waubonsee’s basketball program. Under her guidance 18 players have been named All-Illinois Skyway Collegiate Conference First Teamers, including Maxzine Rossler and Alyssa Harbin, who led the Lady Chiefs to 17 wins last season. Wagner’s 2004-2005 and 2005-2006 teams both finished second in the ISCC and reached the NJCAA Region IV semi-finals. Led by two-time All-Region IV First Teamer Shar James, the 2004-2005 team went 19-12 overall before suffering a heartbreaking, last-second playoff loss to national power Carl Sandburg College the following season.
Wagner also directed the volleyball program for two seasons and was the head coach of the Lady Chiefs’ softball team for 11 years, helping guide the 2007 team to the ISCC title and a record-breaking 33-13 season. Wagner was named the ISCC’s Female Coach of the Year for 2005-06 after her basketball and softball teams each finished near the top of the league.
Wagner graduated in 1992 from Kaneland High School where she was an All-Little Seven Conference selection in basketball. In 1997 she earned her physical education degree from Aurora University after starring on the court for the Spartans. Wagner was inducted into the Spartans’ Athletic Hall of Fame in 2009 and remains Aurora’s all-time leading scorer with 1,693 points. Wagner was a three-time Division III All-American and was tabbed All-Central Region three times. She was also selected the Northern Illinois Intercollegiate Conference (NIIC) Player of the Year three times, making the All-NIIC team all four years. Wagner was also named Aurora’s Female Athlete of the Year an unprecedented three times and her No. 40 jersey was retired by Aurora upon the conclusion of her last game as a Spartan.
In addition to her coaching duties, Wagner oversees several facets of the Chiefs’ Athletic Department as the full-time Assistant Athletic Manager. She also runs Waubonsee’s intramural programs, handles all of the school’s on-campus athletic events and serves as facilities coordinator for the college’s gymnasium, Erickson Hall. As if all of that wasn’t enough for the Aurora resident, she and husband Tim juggle three kids, Cal (18) and Reece (5), and Sydney (3).
Jim Sury, Assistant Coach
Jim Sury returns for his second season with the Lady Chiefs after serving as an assistant to Waubonsee’s men’s program the previous three years. Twice during that time he helped guide the Chiefs to the Region IV title and an NJCAA Division II National Tournament berth. Coach Sury has spent time as a boy’s varsity assistant coach of both basketball and baseball at Marmion Academy. The last five years he has been the Cadets’ head sophomore baseball coach, while also coaching in Aurora’s Little League and Legion League for nearly a decade.
Sury is a 1970 graduate of Marmion where he was a three-year letterman in both basketball and baseball, reaching All-Suburban Catholic Conference (SCC) status in each. On the court he was named the Cadets’ Most Valuable Player Award and was a Chicago Sun-Times All-State selection his senior year. Sury finished his prep career with a memorable 33-point first half performance in a Regional Final loss to Aurora East High School, making 15 of 16 shots in the process. He excelled on the diamond as well, earning the Aurora Legion League’s Most Valuable Player Award the summer of 1970.
Sury went on to play both basketball and baseball for a year at Quincy College before joining the Navy for four years beginning in 1973. He graduated in 1980 from Hood University in Maryland with a degree in psychology. Sury then spent four years working with gangs and youth on the streets of Chicago through the Christopher House, earning accolades from the Chicago Tribune. He later taught science and math at St. Rita’s Elementary in Aurora. Sury has owned and operated his own painting business for the last 18 years, while also serving as a member of the Marmion Alumni Board the last 13 years. Sury lives in St. Charles with his wife Alice.
