A large crowd attended a special event at Wild Rose events center in Jefferson Sunday night to celebrate the current National Basketball Association (NBA) champion head coach.

Carroll native Nick Nurse arrived in style with the traveling NBA championship trophy at his side. The Carroll Kuemper High School graduate started his coaching career at his alma mater as an assistant men’s basketball coach with the University of Northern Iowa and is now the head coach of the NBA Champion Toronto Raptors. Nurse gave advice for other small-town individuals to achieve their highest potential.

“I never really got caught up in anything other than trying to learn every year. I just kept trying to coach any team anybody would let me coach to keep practicing, and building chemistry, and toughness and all those things that you need to have a successful team. I never got frustrated at all. Just keep plugging away and you’ll never know what can happen.”

The program included several speakers including Governor Kim Reynolds, who proclaimed June 30th as “Nick Nurse Day.” Other speakers were the “Voice of the Hawkeyes” Gary Dolphin as the emcee, Nurse’s Kuemper boy’s basketball coach Wayne Chandlee, along with friends Frank Molak, Jeff Burris, Mike Finger; Nurse’s UNI Assistant Coach Kevin Lehman, East Tennessee State University Steve Forbes, retired coach Orv Salmon, former Hawkeye basketball player Bobby Hansen and Iowa Energy Founder Jerry Crawford.