Staff

Kim Cherry-Beck

Associate AD for Development, Director of the Catamount Club

A Catamount student-athlete alum and former head cheerleading coach, Kim Cherry-Beck returned to the Athletics department staff in the summer of 2023 as the Director of Development heading the Catamount Club.
 
A 2001 graduate of Western Carolina University, Cherry-Beck has spent much of her professional career working in higher education. She spent 11 years as an academic advisor in WCU’s Advising Center, finishing as the interim Director of Undergraduate Advising in August 2015. She was WCU’s head cheerleading coach, guiding a program that she was a part of for four years as an undergraduate in Cullowhee. While leading the cheerleading squad, Cherry-Beck managed the budget and orchestrated fundraising efforts for the team, including raising funds to attend the National Cheerleading Association national competition in Daytona Beach, Fla., annually.
 
As the Director of Development, Cherry-Beck will oversee the day-to-day operations of the Catamount Club, the fundraising arm of Western Carolina Athletics. Supervising a team of development officers, she is responsible for developing and implementing strategies for annual giving that include identifying, cultivating, soliciting, and stewardship of new lead annual fund donors and prospects. She and her staff will remain focused on renewing current Catamount Club donors, acquiring new donors, and donor stewardship and engagement events including functions such as the Catamount Club Golf Tour and PurpleZone tailgates and receptions. She will also serve as the Catamount Club Board of Directors liaison.
 
Cherry-Beck returned to western North Carolina in the summer of 2022 when her husband, Alan Beck, was named WCU’s head baseball coach. She spent the previous six years in Statesboro, Ga., working as an academic advisor at Georgia Southern University where Beck was an assistant under former WCU player and coach Rodney Hennon.
 
Originally from Denver, N.C., Cherry-Beck received her degree in physical education with a disciplinary focus on sociology from WCU in 2001. She earned her Master of Counselor Education from Clemson in May 2004, working with Clemson’s Student-Athlete Enrichment Programs and as a graduate assistant in the Michelin® Career Center.
 
Married in August 2008, Cherry-Beck, and her husband Alan – a 2004 graduate of Western Carolina and former All-Southern Conference baseball player – have two sons, Easton and Eli.

Martin Unger

Assistant Director of Development / Catamount Club

Western Carolina alum and a member of the WCU Athletics Hall of Fame through the 1996 Southern Conference Championship men’s basketball team, Martin Unger returned to his alma mater in August 2023 to join the Catamount Club staff as an Assistant Director of Development.
 
Unger has spent his career working in both higher and secondary education, serving the past seven years as a school counselor and teacher between the Gastonia, Rowan-Salisbury, and Charlotte-Mecklenburg school districts. He returned to Cullowhee after five years as the school counselor at Myers Park High in Charlotte, mentoring students and aiding in class scheduling and college counseling.
 
In addition to his work in education, Unger also has an athletics background as a basketball coach. His most recent stint was at North Rowan High School as the head varsity boys' basketball coach. He guided the NRHS program to a conference tournament championship back in 2018.
 
Unger’s first full-time coaching position came at Nicholls State in Thibodaux, La., where he also served as the program’s recruiting coordinator in 2006-07. That led to an assistant coaching position at the University of Missouri at Kansas City where he spent five years. During his time on staff, Unger helped recruit and coached the program’s all-time leading rebounder and was a part of the team’s third-best overall record in school history in the 2010-11 season.
 
In 2012, Unger returned to North Carolina as the associate head coach at Belmont Abbey College where he was a part of the 2013 Conference Carolinas championship and berth in the NCAA Division II national tournament. He was promoted to the program’s head coach in August 2014 where he spent two seasons before his career took him to secondary education. Unger mentored a 2015 NABC All-State Good Works Team recipient Justin Kuhlman, with his squad receiving the 2015-16 Men’s Basketball Messick Award for Sportsmanship for Conference Carolinas. Three of his players collected Academic All-Conference honors under his tutelage.
 
During his time at Belmont Abbey, Unger was heavily involved with the college alumni and donors in helping with fundraising projects for the men’s basketball program.
 
Unger began his coaching career as a student assistant while an undergraduate in Cullowhee. He parlayed that experience into a director of basketball operations position at the University of Richmond under head coach John Beilein, working with a Spiders program that advanced to the NCAA tournament in 1998 and the NIT in 2001. His intercollegiate experience also includes five years at Florida State as the video coordinator and assistant recruiting coordinator before catching on at Nicholls State in 2006.
 
Unger is a 1997 graduate of Western Carolina with a Bachelor of Arts in sociology. He and his wife Heather Kepley Unger – also a 1997 WCU graduate and member of the Catamount women’s golf team and Phi Mu sorority – have four children. His eldest daughter Kelsey graduated from WCU in 2022; daughter Katherine who is enrolled at Liberty University; and sons Carson and Cody.

Taylor Holman

Assistant Director of Events, Stewardship and Development

tholman@wcu.edu

Taylor Holman joined the Catamount Club advancement team in September 2022 as an Assistant Director of Development, coming to Cullowhee with an extensive background and experience in event management.

While working with the Rugby Union Players Association in Sydney, Australia, Holman planned and executed a networking event for past and present players and members of The Rugby Club Foundation. She also worked with the North Carolina State University Club to organize events for the member's children and worked as a program assistant for NC State's Wellness and Recreation where she developed and executed events within the group fitness department, developed programming and matrices for ACE Group Fitness courses and led and managed evaluations of instructors.

Holman earned her Bachelor of Science in Sport Management from NC State and her Master of Arts in Strategic Communication from Liberty University.