Calvin women’s head basketball coach Chuck Winkleman resigned on January 14, with nine games remaining in the season, an unusual move for a head coach.

The resignation came shortly after Winkleman’s sixth loss in the previous seven tries to rival Hope College.

Winkleman’s teams saw a decrease in performance over the two and a half years he coached at Calvin. After going 22-6 overall and 12-4 in the MIAA in the 2016-17 season, the team’s overall record dropped to 16-10 last year, and fell even further to 8-8 at the time of the resignation.

His overall record of 46-24 is far from the 299-67 record that John Ross posted before stepping down in 2016, which included four trips to the NCAA DIII Tournament quarterfinals. Winkleman lost in the first round in his sole trip to the NCAA DIII Tournament as Calvin’s head coach.

In his place, Calvin named assistant coach Austin Randel as the interim head coach for the rest of the season. Randel is in his second year with the team.

The Knights won their first game with Randel at the helm, before dropping the next three games by an average of ten points.

The Knights will be back in action at Calvin on February 4 against conference opponent Alma.