The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) has announced that Missouri Baptist University Assistant Professor Lowell Pitzer will be named to the organization’s Hall of Fame.

The induction into the Hall of Fame is NAIA’s highest honor.

Pitzer, who will be named for Meritorious Service, is both the former Head Coach and Director of Athletics at MBU. He currently works as an assistant professor in the University’s Education Division.

Throughout the years, Pitzer has served the NAIA at the local, regional and national levels. He is the current American Midwest Conference (AMC) Commissioner.

Through his 27-year career in higher education, he has served as both a coach and an administrator. He worked under two conferences (Gulf Coast Athletic Conference and the American Midwest Conference) as conference President, and has served on both NAIA men’s and women’s basketball tournament committees as a committee member and chairman.

“I am grateful the NAIA would honor me with this prestigious award,” Pitzer said. “The men and women with whom I have had the privilege to serve embrace NAIA’s core values of integrity, respect, responsibility, sportsmanship and servant leadership. This organization and those with whom I have had the privilege to serve has profoundly affected my worldview.”

This honor is one that was given to Pitzer’s college coach nearly five decades ago. “I remembered immediately that my college coach, Rex Pyles of Alderson-Broaddus College, W.V., and one of the founders of the NAIA in 1937, had been inducted into the Hall of Fame for Meritorious service about fifty years ago,” he reminisced. “His expression all those years ago was one of delight and thankfulness for being selected for this honor.”

Pitzer served as the Head Men’s Basketball Coach at MBU from 1990 to 1997. He was named men’s basketball conference Coach of the Year in the 1991-1992 season. His men’s basketball team qualified for the NAIA National Championship in 1994. From 1997-2002, he served as the Head Women’s Basketball Coach at MBU and was the conference Coach of the Year in the 1999-2000 season.

Pitzer was recognized at Alderson-Broaddus as a Distinguished Alumnus in 2005 and was inducted into their Sports Hall of Fame in 2009.

Prior to those honors, Missouri Baptist retired Pitzer’s jersey and inducted him into the MBU Hall of Fame in 2004.

Pitzer’s official induction will take place in April at the annual NAIA Convention in Kansas City, Mo.

Missouri Baptist University is a Christ-centered university located in Saint Louis. MBU offers more than 40 undergraduate degrees, graduate degrees in education, business and religion and its new terminal degree, the Doctor of Education. In addition to its 66-acre West St. Louis County campus, MBU offers degree programs at 10 regional learning centers throughout Saint Louis, in Southern Illinois and online. For more information, go to www.mobap.edu or call 1-877-434-1115.