After graduating from Nebraska, Bender served as head football coach at South Dakota State Normal School (now Black Hills State University) for one season before moving on to Washington State, where he was the head football and basketball coach between 1906 and 1908 and he posted a 13–1 record in football. His 1907–08 basketball squad also recorded a 12–3 mark, by far the best in school history to that point. Between 1908 and 1909, Bender coached football at Haskell Indian Nations University and from 1910 to 1911 he coached football at Saint Louis University. During the 1911 season, reporters in St. Louis commented that Bender looked like a charm doll called a Billiken, which were a national fad at the time. His squad became known as "Bender's Billikens," which is the genesis of SLU's athletic nickname. Bender returned to coach Washington State football from 1912 to 1914.