A familiar, All-American, name is coming back to Augustana. Viking men’s basketball head coach Tom Billeter has announced the hiring of Cody Schilling as an assistant coach.
“I am extremely excited to have Cody back on the Augustana campus,” Billeter said. “His growth as a teacher and coach since his graduation from here in 2012 has been very impressive. He will have a personal story both as a former player but also as an Augie student which will only help enhance our recruiting platform.
“Cody will fit in well with my current staff and I know our players will be excited to get started so they can learn from him. He and his wife Erica are both great additions to our Viking family.”
Schilling, the NSIC Freshman of the Year in 2009, earned three First Team All-NSIC honors and a pair of All-America accolades from D2 Bulletin as a student-athlete while earning his degree in elementary education from AU. He left Augustana as the program’s all-time leading scorer with 1,868 points and still holds the record with the highest free-throw percentage in program history at 86.5 percent.
“I am fired up to be back in Sioux Falls and a part of the Augustana men’s basketball and athletics family again,” Schilling said. “The fit, time and place couldn’t be better for my wife, Erica, and I. Augustana University is doing so many great things across campus and within athletics and I can’t wait to be a part of that again. Working alongside Coach Billeter is something that I am greatly looking forward to and I want to help him and the entire staff get Augustana basketball back atop the NSIC. I am ecstatic to be coming home.”
Schilling comes back to Augustana after serving as a head coach at both the collegiate and high school levels. Most recently, he was named the head boys basketball coach at Royse City High School in Royse City, Texas, a position he was named to in April. He spent the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons as the head coach at Bishop Louis Reicher Catholic High School where he led the Cougars to the Texas High School Final Four with a record of 20-4 in 2020-21. Seven of the team’s players were named first or second team all-district.
The Ellsworth, Minnesota, native served as the head coach of Mount Marty for two seasons where he orchestrated an impressive turnaround where a team he recruited won 20 games in 2019-20. In his first year with MMU, the Lancers won more games than the previous three seasons combined.
Following graduation from Augustana, he taught and coached at Dell Rapids St. Mary’s before moving to the Director of Avera Select Basketball and lead trainer for Warwick Workouts in Sioux Falls.
“The Augustana family is fantastic, and I am beyond grateful and excited for this opportunity,” Schilling added. “The number of high-caliber people at Augustana University and in this community is unbelievable and I cannot say enough about how well I’ve been treated throughout this whole hiring process.
“Erica and I have had some incredible influences in our lives, and we are excited for the opportunities and friendships that this new experience will provide.”
