Cheek is entering his 21st season as the head coach of the Humboldt State softball team, twice capturing the NCAA Division II Championship (1999, 2008). During his first 20 seasons with the Lumberjacks softball program, Cheek has guided the team to 16 conference championships, 19 west regional playoff appearances and five west region titles. The leader of the 2008 NFCA Division II’s Coaching Staff of the Year, Cheek has also served as the wrestling coach and athletic director at HSU.
"We've had a good run at Humboldt State," Cheek says. "We won our second national championship and that carries a lot of weight. When you win the championship and there's 275 teams and you're the last one standing, that speaks for the program. The award didn't just speak for this year, it spoke for 20 years of effort on the part of the players and coaches here at Humboldt. This is really quite an accomplishment for the entire University."
Cheek will be back on the field with his squad this spring as the Jacks look to defend their national title. Right now, at the close of the fall semester, the team is in finals mode, Cheek says. That means studying for tests, writing term papers and no official softball practice. Nevertheless, Cheek says, when he stopped by the Student Recreation Center to workout this week he found a collection of his players practicing pitching and lifting weights.
"No one told them to workout, it's finals week, you don't expect it, but there they are working out," Cheek says. "That's a mark of a championship team. That's something they did on their own and that's the kind of leadership we have here with our juniors and seniors."
The NFCA represents all levels of college softball, high school softball and virtually every other form of competitive softball played in the United States. Bill Edwards of Hofstra University and Diane Ninemire of the University of California, Berkeley will also be inducted at the ceremony next year.