Bio

In more than two decades at Morningside, Sale has established himself as one of the elite coaches in the nation while raising the Mustangs’ women’s basketball program to national prominence.

Sale, the fifth active National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics' head coach to reach 600 total victories is the winningest women's basketball coach in Morningside history. He has also established his teams as perennial contenders for a national title, with the majority of his season's concluding at the NAIA national championships.

Sale was named the NAIA Division II National Coach of the Year in 2004, 2005, 2009, and 2015 after he guided the Mustangs to NAIA II National Championships in each of those seasons. His 2008-09 team finished with a perfect record of 38-0 to become only the second team in history to capture the NAIA Division II crown with an undefeated record after they defeated Hastings College 68-63 in the National Championship Game. Sale led the Mustangs to a 34-4 record in 2003-04 and the college’s first-ever national title in a team sport when Morningside defeated Cedarville University 87-74 in the NAIA Division II tournament championship game. He guided Morningside to a second consecutive national crown in 2005 when the Mustangs knocked off No. 1-ranked Cedarville 75-65 in the NAIA Division II title game to cap a 35-3 season. The Mustangs won their most recent NAIA Division II title in 2014-15 after they edged Concordia 59-57 in the title game to put the finishing touches on a stellar 37-1 campaign.

He has guided the Mustangs to 21 consecutive NAIA tournament appearances, a school-record 15 consecutive 20-win seasons (2003-04 to 2017-18), eight NAIA tournament semifinal appearances, 11 Great Plains Athletic Conference (GPAC) regular-season championships, and six GPAC Post-Season Tournament championships. Sale led the Mustangs to five consecutive GPAC regular-season championships from 2004-05 to 2008-09 and to four straight GPAC crowns from 2012-13 to 2015-16. Sale's 2015-16 team won the GPAC title by a five-game advantage for the largest victory margin in league history. His teams have produced the 15 highest single-season victory totals in school history. His 2005-06 Morningside team won the GPAC's post-season tournament and was the GPAC regular-season co-champion with Hastings College to become the first team in league history to win both titles in the same season. Sale was named the GPAC Coach of the Year following 2007-08, 2008-09, 2012-13, 2014-15, 2015-16, and 2020-21 seasons.

He was the 2004 recipient of the Paul Maaske Memorial Award presented by the Iowa Basketball Coaches Association. The award is presented each year to a non-Division I collegiate coach in Iowa in honor of the former long-time coach at Cornell College.

The transformation of the Morningside women’s basketball program has been remarkable since Sale’s arrival. After inheriting a team that had produced a combined total of only five victories over the previous two seasons, Sale led Morningside to a 7-19 record in his first season at the helm, followed by a 17-16 record the next year for the school’s first winning season since the 1992-93 campaign. Morningside also qualified for the NAIA Division II tournament that season for the school’s first national tournament appearance since 1986.

Sale has brought a crowd-pleasing style of basketball to Morningside that features tenacious full-court defensive pressure and a high scoring offensive attack featuring one of the most potent 3-point shooting attacks in NAIA history.

The Mustangs averaged a school-record 87.6 points per game in 2003-04 and made an NAIA Division II record 400 3-point field goals to shatter the previous national record of 311 3-pointers by Bethel College in 2001-02. The Mustangs made an NAIA Division II National Tournament record 17 3-pointers in their championship game victory against Cedarville.

Sale was named the seventh head coach in the history of Morningside’s women’s basketball program on March 26, 2001, following a distinguished career at Briar Cliff University. Sale was one of the nation’s most successful women’s basketball coaches during his three seasons as head coach at Briar Cliff, where he compiled a 79-20 record for a .798 winning percentage and led the Chargers to three Round of 16 or higher finishes at the NAIA Division II tournament. His .798 career winning percentage at Briar Cliff is a school record.

Sale is a 1995 graduate of the University of Nebraska.