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Men's Basketball
JUCO Coaching Report
Jan. 30, 2003
By Tony Jimenez Seventh-year coach Joe O'Brien of Southeastern, Iowa, makes no qualms about it, he'd love to coach at a good four-year school in the future. But if it doesn't happen, he'll be cool with it. O'Brien - one of the most respected coaches in the two-year school ranks whose team was 23-0 and ranked No. 1 in the National JC Athletic Association poll in late January - would be content to stay in Burlington, a town of 35,000 that is the shopping and entertainment hub for southeastern Iowa and western Illinois. "I have aspirations to coach at a (NCAA) Division I school," said O'Brien, 47. "I am fairly young and if an opportunity comes along that was good for me, I'd look into it. But I am not interested in being an assistant coach." That's one of those been there, done that deals; he was an assistant coach to current Kansas State coach Jim Wooldridge at Central Missouri State (1985-90) "For me, at this stage of my career," said O'Brien, "I have the best juco job in the country for me." Not many jucos give their coach use of a courtesy car, his own radio show and finagle their way into having him teach only two days a week. He also lives in a rabid juco town. Season ticket sales totaled 1,200 this season and attendance averages 2,000 at home, peanuts at a four-year school, meat and potatoes at a JC. O'Brien has done his part by producing winning teams. His 2000 team, which went 34-4, won SE Iowa's first-ever NJCAA tournament title and his team next season - nine of 12 players are freshmen this campaign - is sure to be a winner. "He is one of the best coaches in the country," said long-time juco talent scout Jerry Mullen. "His teams are so disciplined, play so well as a team and play so hard defensively." O'Brien's recruiting trips - Iowa rules dictate schools have at least four in-state players - have taken him to Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. In six seasons in Iowa, he has a 144-49 record - his last three teams were 84-22 - or an average 24 wins per season. And, 19 of his players have earned NCAA Division I scholarships. "I like the seasons of basketball...recruiting in the spring and summer, the practices in the fall and then the games in the winter," said O'Brien. "I really like practices and the motivating and the teaching that goes on there." Oh, and while O'Brien has been flexible enough to bend with the changing times - i.e. allowing his players to wear ear rings and sport tattoes - he still wants a solid player on the floor and a decent kid off of it. "We're pretty picky," he said. "We want disciplined kids, kids who will graduate." In 11 seasons as a JC coach (he spent five seasons at Lincoln, Ill.), O'Brien has had 54 of 59 of his sophomores graduate and his team this season recorded an average 3.2 grade point average on a 4.0 scale...
Tip-Ins Guy Beach loves being the boss. That's one of the reasons he became the head coach at the College of Southern Idaho last season after a two-year stint as an assistant coach at Texas-El Paso. "I like calling the shots...and being able to coach," said Beach, 38, who spent two years as an assistant at Weber State and two years as the head coach at Eastern Utah before moving to Texas. "As an assistant at a four-year school I did more recruiting and scouting. "I like the responsibility of calling all of the shots." Beach, whose team was 17-4 as of mid-January, has one of the most coveted jobs among the nation's jucos and he knows it. "It is different here, a lot different," he said. "It's got a lot of (NCAA) Division I in it." Meaning the heat is on - constantly - to win... Bill Brummel of defending California state champion Saddleback, hit the 450-win mark in his coaching career when the Gauchos topped Orange Coast, 88-47, on Jan. 24. Brummel is 450-228 in 22 seasons at Saddleback, which is 17-5 and ranked No. 8 in the state this season... A current juco coach and a former juco player hit similar milestones in January. Coach Ryan Wolf of Barton County, Kans., got his 100th win in four short years - he is 100-23 - when the Cougars blasted Butler County, 76-57. "I'm pretty happy to get it in four years," said Wolf. "I'm in a great program." Lorenzo Romar, a former Cerritos, Calif., College star, won his 100th college game when Washington beat visiting Stanford. He is 100-96 in seven seasons. Before coaching at Washington, his alma mater, he was the head coach at Pepperdine and St. Louis... The folks in Arizona are still adjusting to life without Chuck LalaVetter, who resigned from his Eastern Arizona coaching position last summer after 32 years at the school... Texas Tech coach Bob Knight may be a walking controversy to some folks, but to coach Steve Green of Howard, Texas he's okay. Since Knight came to Lubbock, Green says he has been to Tech practices and learned plenty. "I attribute some o the things we have done and some improvement we have made this season to Coach Knight," said Green. "In my book, Coach Knight has been a great ambassador for juco basketball." Knight has five former juco players on his Texas Tech roster, including Kasib Powell (Butler County, Kans.), who helped the Red Raiders make an unexpected trip to the NCAA tournament last season... When the curtain came down on the 2001-02 season and Dixie State, Utah won the national juco tournament championship the prevailing thought from most quarters was that the Rebels had little or no chance of getting back to Hutchinson, Kans., for the NJCAA Division I tournament. They were wrong. Dixie State - ranked No. 10 by the NJCAA and 20-2 despite having only three players back from last year's team - is rolling thanks to a 62-game home court winning streak, believed to be the current best mark at any collegeiate level. "People play us with unbelievable effort," said coach Jeff Kidder. "At times it has been harder for us at home than it has been on the road."... Lots of coaches say they play a tough schedule, but coach Tom Barr of Southwest Missouri State-West Plains isn't espousing so much hot air when he says it. The Grizzlies have an 11-10 overall record - 9-7 against teams that received some mention in the NJCAA polls this campaign. "We play the toughest schedule in junior college," said Barr, who instigated the SWMS-West Plains program 10 years ago. "We wanted it to be tough but we went overboard. There is no letup. We always have to be at our best."... While numerous juco coaches bask in obscurity, Western Nebraska coach Trace Bevell, whose team is 16-3, says many of them like the more low key lifestyle of a juco coach. "I am happy right now, but I'd like to get to the (NCAA) DI level some day," said Bevell, 39. "But, a lot of juco coaches like just where they are at. The quality of life is good and you are your own boss. You can pretty much come and go as you like." Bevell, who succeeded Dave 'Soupy' Campbell at Western Nebraska, says he expects Campbell to be back in the coaching ranks in the future. Campbell, one of the most popular figures on the JC circuit in his two-year school days, was an assistant coach at Nebraska but is now the Director of Basketball Operations there. "He's a coach," said Bevell. "He's been a coach his whole life. He wants to coach."... San Jose JC coach Percy Carr has a 622-270 record in 28 seasons and in that time he has seen changes galore, on and off the court. The biggest difference? "It's in in the players, how they want more for less work," said Carr. "They do not want to work as hard as players in the past. All of them want to go to a (NCAA) DI school but they don't want to put out the extra effort to get there. It's not just the players. More people in society in general think they are owed something."... The top five winningest coaches on the active NJCAA list:
1. Gene Bess Three Rivers, Mo. 32 years 909-222
2. Bob Kirk Allegany, Md. 31 years 869-170
3. Leon Spencer Trinity Valley, Texas 38 years 765-416
4. William Shay Allegheny County, Pa. 34 years 721-297
5. Bob Tipson Champlain, Vt. 34 years 704-265
"Everyone of those guys is capable of coaching at a four-year school," said Mullen. "That is a good bunch of coaches."... No one has said if officially but expect Brian Bess to replace his father Gene, 67, as the head coach at Three Rivers, Mo., when the latter steps down in the next season or so. Brian, 31, is in his 10th season as his father's right-hand man and both are in the midst of a big season; the Raiders are 19-2 and ranked No. 6 in the NJCAA poll. "Dad doesn't even know when he's going to give it up," said Brian. "Being his assistant has a lot of responsibilties. The hardest part is that when I mess up I feel like I let the team and my Dad down." Brian played for his father for two seasons (1989-1991) and the Raiders' team he played on as a freshman, with Latrell Sprewell as a teammate, finished fourth in the NJCAA tournament... In the NJCAA Division II ranks, Brown Mackie of Salina coach Francis Flax coaxed his team to a, 105-81, win over Mid-Kansas AAU, to notch his 200th win since he came to the Salina-based school in 1992-93. Flax has literally built the program from the ground up - formerly a business school in which the majority of the school's student body was made up of females - at Brown Mackie; the school has no dormitories for players, no true home court and limited scholarship money. Three of his teams have been to the national tournament, his 1999 team winning all of the DII marbles and the 1997 and 1998 groups finishing fourth. "To succeed at a school that is so tough academically is really
rewarding," said Flax. "It is a tribute to a great group of athletes who have
played here."
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