A lot can change within collegiate athletic programs these days. Players can transfer or go pro, team colors and jerseys are altered, and coaches can get the boot at any time during any season. Amidst all the potential for change, one thing at Iowa State has been constant over the last 16 years: Bill Fennelly roaming the ISU sideline.

As the head coach of the Cyclones, Fennelly has distinguished himself from other coaches throughout the country.

There’s the pregame walk around the concourse at Hilton Coliseum. A Diet Coke can in hand during his postgame press conferences. And the daily, sometimes hourly, 140 character thoughts he posts on his Twitter account.

But more important than his off-the-court distinctiveness at Iowa State has been his on-the-court success. On Monday night, that success reached another milestone as the Cyclones defeated Drake 64-46 for Fennelly’s 500th career win.

“This is a night to celebrate Iowa State and celebrate what can happen when a lot of young people believe in something good and are part of a great school,” Fennelly said.

The 500th win made Fennelly the 41st coach all-time and 24th active coach in NCAA women’s basketball to achieve the 500-win milestone.

“To be on a list like that is cool, it really is,” Fennelly said. “And it says that for some part of your life you’ve done something right and you’ve surrounded yourself with great people.”

Senior guard Kelsey Bolte has been around for 75 of those 500 wins.

“It’s not just about basketball here, he influences our life on and off the court whether it’s with our personal lives or school work or even if it is basketball-related, he’s always going to be there for us,” Bolte said. “He’d do anything for each and every one of us on the team.”

Fennelly and the crowd of 9,470 were able to watch a 14-minute video commemorating his accomplishment following the game. The video included 26 messages from former players, family members and fellow head coaches, along with highlights of some of the most memorable ISU women’s basketball moments throughout Fennelly’s tenure.

Some messages poked fun at his age and the change of his hair color, but images of the coach in the ’90s wearing suspenders drew the strongest reaction from those in attendance.

“Some of [the pictures], I was like, ‘wow,'” said sophomore center Anna Prins.

A few of the pictures even dated Fennelly’s fashion sense.

“Back then it was cool to wear them,” Fennelly said of sporting his suspenders.

Also back then, the ISU women’s basketball team wasn’t such a “cool” team on campus. Fennelly inherited a program that had never reached the NCAA tournament and had had only five winning seasons in 22 years.

ISU games were also not a featured event at Hilton Coliseum, with an average of only 733 fans in the year before Fennelly’s arrival.

Enter Fennelly.

The coach, who went 166-53 at Toledo from 1988-94, made it his goal to put fans in the seats and banners in the rafters of Hilton Coliseum.

In his 16-year tenure, the Cyclones have been to 11 NCAA tournaments including five Sweet 16 appearances and two trips to the Elite Eight. The team’s following has also grown as Hilton Coliseum has averaged more than 9,000 fans per game in each of the last three seasons.

“It’s incredible what coach Fennelly has done with this Iowa State program,” said Drake coach Amy Stephens. “I know how incredible it is, because I was here the first year [coach Theresa Becker was at Iowa State and was 2-25]. What he’s done with the program is a huge accomplishment.”

In March of 2007, Fennelly joined just a handful of college coaching greats such as Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and Florida State’s Bobby Bowden when he signed a lifetime contract as coach of the Cyclones.

Fennelly coaches the No. 17 team in the country with a roster of 11 female student-athletes, but perhaps the two most important recruits on the bench are his two sons Billy, the newly-hired director of player development, and Steven, a senior in communication studies.

Fennelly fought back tears as he thanked Athletic Director Jamie Pollard, ISU President Gregory Geoffroy and Calli Sanders, senior associate athletic director, for giving him the opportunity to coach alongside his sons.

“There’s a lot of things that have happened in my life, and at the end of that game to be able to walk down the bench and have them sitting there is professionally as good as it gets for me,” Fennelly said.

“When your dad is a coach, that’s hard,” he said. “You miss a lot, you hear a lot, there’s a lot of pressure on you, so for me to feel like they approve of what I’ve done and how I’ve done it pretty much validates everything I’ve done in my life.”

In the stands there’s another important recruit, and in fact, Fennelly commonly refers to her as his “best recruit” — his wife, Deb.

“There’s nothing worse than being a coach’s wife. It’s hard; they’re going straight to heaven,” Fennelly said. “I always say [she’s] the best recruit I’ve ever had.

“There’s a lot of people that have done a lot of great things and I hope in a really, really, really small way I’ve given one one-hundredth back that those people have given me.”

Looking ahead, is there another milestone Fennelly is excited to get to?

“501 at UNI on Sunday,” Fennelly said.

The Cyclones will face the Panthers in Cedar Falls on Sunday with the opening tip set for 3 p.m.