Bill Wedlake, who helped bring an unprecedented sports record to the University of Winnipeg, is retiring after a storied career as a basketball coach and then athletics director.

Wedlake has announced he will retire at the end of March, after 24 years at the university.

As the university's basketball coach from 1984 to 2000, Wedlake took his Wesmen teams to the national championships six times. He was inducted into the Basketball Manitoba Hall of Fame in 2005.

Among his achievements, he helped the university set a record that's never been matched by any other in Canada. In 1993, four U of W teams — men's and women's basketball and volleyball — were all ranked in first place countrywide.

"We were all No. 1 together," Wedlake recalled Friday. "That was a great year because we ended up in the national semifinal, [and] Jeff Forman, a local guy, was the player of the year in the whole country."

Wedlake became the university's athletic director in 2000. He told CBC News he's happy to leave while the sports programs and facilities at the university are at a high point.

"The program is in great shape. We've expanded. We have a wonderful state-of-the-art fitness centre wrapping around the front of the building — we just opened that a couple of weeks ago," he said.

"I think it's a great time to be able to move on and leave whatever legacy I leave behind to new people with new ideas and new enthusiasm, and I'm sure it's going to prosper even more."

Wedlake said he plans to do a bit of consulting in his retirement.

Before coming to the university, Wedlake coached for 16 years at St. John's High School.