Central College Athletics

Larry Happel '81
Sports information

Happel served as Central’s athletics communications director for 45 years (1979-2024), the longest tenure of any college or university SID in Iowa history.

Retiring in 2024 from a job he started before he began his senior year of college, Happel then served in a part-time role as senior athletics editor. As a student, Happel spent a year as editor of the school newspaper following two years as sports editor, and with some fellow dormitory residents conspired to start the offbeat Lemming Race that has since become a Central homecoming tradition.

Happel never wore a Central uniform but generated stories about hundreds who did, utilizing ever-evolving print, visual and digital platforms. Ten of Central’s 11 NCAA Division III team championships were won on his watch and he personally witnessed nine of them.

He served on several College Sports Communicators committees along with a three-year term on the College Sports Communicators board of directors and five years on the Division III Sports Information Directors of America board, including a year as president. He received the CSC Warren Berg Award for outstanding achievement in sports information in 2006 and was inducted into the CSC Hall of Fame in 2010. He’s received 35 CSC publications awards and 18 CSC writing awards, including the 2017 CSC Fred Stabley Sr. Writing Contest National Story of the Year Award.

Happel, a Waverly native, also spent a 10-month sabbatical as a visiting assistant in men’s athletics communications at the University of Tennessee in 2003-04. A member of the Pella CROP Walk for World Hunger board for nearly 20 years, he served a three-year term on the Marion County Habitat for Humanity board of directors. Happel has served multiple terms on the consistory of Pella’s Second Reformed Church, where he is a longtime member.