The recent departures of Howard Payne’s Chris Kielsmeier and Bowdoin’s Stefanie Pemper should remind us all that coaching in Division III can be fairly transient.
Many great coaches have given their life’s work to Division III. Others have started in Division III and moved on. For the most part, this is the nature of the business. I was talking about this at the Final Four with our colleague, Chris Pesotski, and while I don’t think he agreed fully with my theory, here it is anyway.
Among the top coaches in Division III, we really have two basic groups. I know this may be a little oversimplified, but here goes anyway. There are coaches who are lifers, often working at their alma mater, who love the Division III experience and would never have it any other way. And there are coaches who look to pursue jobs at the scholarship level.
We had three lifers at the men’s Final Four: Not only have Mark Edwards, Dave Hixon and Glenn VanWieren been coaching at their respective schools for decades, they are all coaching at alma mater. I think it was fairly clear Kielsmeier was not a lifer. He had built a great program at Howard Payne, but he had a Division I background and no particular ties to West Texas. And Pemper was beginning to show signs of liferism, but got a good opportunity and is running with it.
It’s hard to tell who’s a lifer and who isn’t for coaches in their 30s and 40s. I would be willing to bet the coaches themselves don’t necessarily know either. But the coaches who have taken Division I head coaching jobs, such as Pemper, Hardin-Simmons/Oklahoma State/Charleston Southern’s Julie Goodenough, or even UW-Platteville/UW-Milwaukee/UW-Madison’s Bo Ryan … and then those who got D-I head coaching jobs after brief assistant coaching stints, such as Catholic/Maryland/Vermont’s Mike Lonergan and King’s/Virginia Commonwealth/Mount St. Mary’s Bryan Whitten, were all relatively young when they left Division III.
OK, not Bo Ryan, but Ryan is the exception to almost every so-called rule.
The point is, we should be glad for our coaches when they move on and up. Ryan talks about his Platteville experiences all the time. They help shine the spotlight on Division III, just a little.
And just a little is good. Really.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of bad coaches in Division III, and in some instances there isn’t a lot of pressure to get better. That’s good for the institution of pure amateur basketball — no scholarships, no particular emphasis on winning — but bad for the kids who could use more help to reach their full potential. Sometimes ADs don’t have the intestinal fortitude to fire someone, and the win-loss record should never, ever be the only measuring stick. But if the program isn’t improving, and the players aren’t getting as much out of it as they should, isn’t that a reason to change?
We have coaches trying to get back into Division III this summer — recognizable coaches who would make an immediate impact on their school after doing something else or coaching elsewhere for a while. I hope they find what they’re looking for.
In the case of Pemper she will most likely be working with the same type of student athletes.
I thought we had a great talk about this down ion Salem and I’ll chip in just a few more points.
First, With over 800 positions, D3 is a MAMMOTH coaching group. every year over 3000 men and women dedicate huge portions of their lives to help student athletes get better on and off the floor.
Many head coaches have dreams to coach at another level. Many assistants just want to be able to be the guy drawing the play down 2 with 12 left. By and large most of the folks I have met that coach at this level love the players and enjoy the level of competition we have here.
Some others are ready to move on or will be soon and I am glad that we have had the chance to work against or with them. It will be a “I knew him when” moment when they get the D1 call they crave. Often their players benefit mightily from their passion for the game, their drive to recruit and win. A few do us a disservice, trying to win at any cost, but there are only a few.
As Pat notes, there are some poor coaches in D1. There are also some poor coaches at D1. Remember the disgraceful behavior of Billy Gillespie in March?
This summer, let hope that the folks who have tried of the game give up their chairs and let some other folks give it a try. The young men and women who sacrifice so much deserve the best. Don’t you think?
Thanks to Coach “K” for making ASC basketball even better. ASC women’s basketball is now on the map, in Texas and the nation, and hopefully for good.
We have had strong teams this decade with outstanding student-athletes, e.g., HSU’s second-team All-Decade Kendra Anderson, HPU’s 2008 POTY Meia Daniels and McMurry’s Jostens 2008 winner Tarra Richardson. Each of these student-athletes exhibited the finest attributes of D-III.
Best wishes to you in D-II, Coach Kielsmier. You have experienced something very special these last few years. Someday, if you are hoisting the Walnut and Bronze again, give a shout-out to your friends and affectionate foes back in D-III.
There have been a couple interesting articles on this same subject recently.
Tom Robinson of the Virginian-Pilot notes that D3hoops.com All-American Liz Hickey hopes to stay involved in Division III basketball as a coach. The senior graduates from the University of Mary Washington this weekend and hopes to share her shot blocking prowess with young players somewhere in the Division III landscape while attending graduate school.
The difficulty that players and coaches face in finding a new coaching opportunity is underlined by Defiance’s experience in hiring Kyle Brumett. The school’s release notes that Brumett was selected from more than 160 applicants. That struck me as an exaggeration until I remembered that every year the coaching job market is flooded with recent graduates looking for their first opportunity. If the person wants to coach badly enough, they stay around the game and keeping applying to more and higher positions. Eventually there’s a build up of assistants, graduate assistants who covet a head coaching opportunity.
On the other side of the equation, Kalle Oakes of the (Lewiston, Maine) Sun Journal encourages Bowdoin and Bates not to overlook local talent in its search to replace Coach Pemper and Joe Reilly respectively. I wonder if local talent is more likely to become a Division III “lifer” than someone recruited through a national search.
I’ve covered programs run by both kinds of coaches. G.A. Mangus put together a tremendous run at Delaware Valley in football, but it was pretty clear the Spurrier protégé was headed to a higher level when the right opportunity arose. I couldn’t begrudge him that. This is his profession, the way he earns his living and supports his family, and he understandably wanted to use his talents at the next level.
Conversely Joe Brown has been the cornerstone of Cortland State’s phenomenal baseball team and it’s hard to envision him ever coaching many other places else. He is the face of Cortland baseball and, while that probably has certain financial or acclamation limitations, that school, the college community and hundreds of young men bear the mark of his years’ of successful work.
I remember meeting GA Mangus back at Widener in the early 90s when he and I shared accommodations for a year. It was clear then that while his passion was for coaching football in general, he would never be happy until he was back in the SEC on a staff. I wish him the best as he tries to do so.
From a different perspective, I remember working with current Del Vall coach Jimmy Clements both as an undergrad and as a young coach. I always thought he put the game ahead of his own opportunity.
Neither is right or wrong. They are just 2 very good coaches with different approaches to the profession. I’d play for either.
Yeah, I don’t think 160 applications is too outlandish. I just disabled the job listing on our site and it had been viewed 1,607 times.
Take into consideration that 160 applicants doesn’t mean 160 qualified applicants. Many search committees get a large number of AAU coaches, high school & junior high coaches (yes, junior high) recently graduated players and recent GA’s who think that a Division III head coaching job is Rung #1 on the coaching ladder. Most of us understand that there’s some dues to be paid before your first head position.
On one hiring committee I know of had over 100 applicants, but about 50% were rejected immediately because they failed to even come close to the published requirements.
After I posted on the NAthCon MBB baord on the coaching change at Lakeland, there was some speculation as to whether there was something negative about that program (it would mark the 2nd MBB coaching change in 3 years for that school). If I remember correctly, the press release on the change indicated that before he came to Lakeland Coach Brumett got some early training in the conference he’s heading back to. So to me, it’s no knock on Lakeland. Just my .02.
Yeah — I think that’s a good job there. The last three coaches have gone on to UW-Platteville, St. Norbert and Defiance.
Put Josh Loeffler on the list of those leaving.