Posted: Nov 07, 2017
GRANBURY, Texas - Head Southwestern University Football Coach Joe Austin has been named to a Global Football-organized squad of select NCAA Division III student-athletes in the annual Tazón De Estrellas (Bowl of the Stars) on Saturday, December 16.
Austin has served as Team Stars & Stripes offensive coordinator since 2013. Austin is in his fifth year as the head coach of Southwestern's football program. He was hired in February 2012, as the program was reintroduced to campus following a 63-year hiatus. It is his eighth year serving with Tazón De Estrellas.
The Pirates have continued to grow in each of the three campaigns led by Austin. In 2016 Austin guided the Pirates to an undefeated 6-0 record in the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC). The championship marked the team's first football championship since 1941 and the 7-3 overall record was the best in more than 70 years, earning Austin the conference's Coach of the Year award.
Prior to Southwestern, Austin transformed the program at Hanover College through four seasons as the head coach, helping the team to back-to-back runner-up finishes in the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference in the final two campaigns. Austin spent two years as the offensive coordinator at the University of Dubuque, where he helped the program to back-to-back winning seasons for the first time in 28 years. Austin has been a regular traveler with Global Football, taking his Hanover and Southwestern football squads to play in Europe.
Team Stars & Stripes is led by head coach Don DeWaard, who is an assistant coach at Central College (Iowa).
Forty-three NCAA Division III student-athletes will represent 27 institutions in the contest.
Team Stars & Stripes will line up against CONADEIP All-Stars, a squad comprised of athletes from private universities in Mexico.
| Coach | School | Year |
| Don De Waard HC | Central College (retired) | 6th as HC |
| Joe Austin OC | Southwestern University | 8th |
| Rob Cushman | Occidental College | 3rd |
| Jim Lyall | Siena Heights University (retired) | 3rd |
| Jim Margraff | John's Hopkins University | 1st |
| Dave Murray | Hamilton College | 1st |
| John Roslien | Central College | 20th |
The Tazón de Estrellas is produced by Global Football, which has provided 14,000 amateur football players, coaches, families and fans from 350 schools the opportunity to travel and compete internationally with similar people of differing cultures since 1996. Patrick Steenberge, president of Global Football, developed and organized the Tazón de Estrellas in 2009, in association with CONADEIP and Division III schools in the United States.