“For the first time in 32 years, the University of Missouri will have a new men’s basketball coach.” That statement, printed atop a 1999 press release by the athletic department, had a head-tilting effect for those who couldn’t imagine a Missouri basketball program without one legendary man on its sidelines. The career of a fascinating and prominent figure, Coach Norm Stewart, was ending.

He stood at the podium announcing his departure, focused and determined. His thin blonde hair had faded to gray since his early days in the Hearnes Center. “I was sitting in Lawrence in January,” he told reporters. “And the fans were chanting my favorite conference chant: ‘Sit down, Norm.’ So, I said to myself, I think I will.” This was 18 years ago.

The Commitment
Ten years prior to his retirement, things changed. After his diagnosis and treatment of colon cancer during the 1988-89 season, Norm Stewart had defeated cancer and took time to heal. He began traveling with his best friend, his wife Virginia — the two are the ultimate team. And soon enough, after he returned to his Missouri roster, he made it his mission to defeat the deadly disease for others. This time, on his own terms.

In the fall of 1993, Coach Stewart and Jerry Quick of the American Cancer Society took their 3-Point Attack fundraising efforts national. Coaches vs. Cancer was born, and just as he did with his players, Stormin’ Norman would see it raised correctly. Now in its 25th year, the program leverages the community involvement, personal experiences and nationwide platforms of basketball coaches to raise cancer awareness and funds. It’s the sole charity represented by the National Association of Basketball Coaches, and today, more than $110 million has been raised for the ACS through Coaches vs. Cancer.

“Those of us who have had the opportunity to coach this sport at a high-profile level should be very appreciative of all the things we have gained from the sport,” says Fran Fraschilla, longtime Coaches vs. Cancer supporter, studio analyst at ESPN and former collegiate coach. He, as so many others at the time, admired the coaches who had come before him. They followed the Missouri man’s lead. “We’re blessed to be involved in such a great game, and to be able to give back, to raise money in the fight against cancer, is an absolute no brainer.”

Fraschilla was a young coach with the Manhattan College Jaspers when Stewart nationalized the organization. At that time, Oklahoma head coach Lon Kruger was only on his second team out of five that he would eventually lead to the NCAA Tournament. Kruger has been a fervent supporter of the cause ever since.

“[Coach Stewart] took the lead. And at that point, he didn’t know what his prognosis was in the long run,” Kruger says. “A long-time survivor now, with his leadership, Coaches vs. Cancer was developed.” Most are well aware of Kruger’s accomplishments leading five programs to the NCAA tournament; the same effort is given in his endeavors to eradicate cancer. In 2007, Kruger began the Coaches vs. Cancer Las Vegas Golf Classic, at which 20-25 coaches gather for a weekend of fundraising. The event raised more than $2 million.

“Our coaches and the people involved have been tremendous, and that’s the greatest satisfaction,” Norm Stewart says. “Look at the Final Four [in 2015]. All four of those guys — Boeheim, Kruger, Jay Wright, Roy Williams — all of them are just huge with [the organization].”

Wright is a part of the program’s Philadelphia chapter, one of the top fundraising groups in the nation. Boeheim will celebrate the 19th year of his BasketBall gala. And Williams, through personal efforts and his Fast Break Against Cancer sit-down breakfast has raised more than $2.3 million. Williams, Boeheim and Kruger have all received the program’s Champion Award. For these reasons, Coach Stewart is quick to focus on those who have worked hand in hand, voluntarily, forgetting all rivalries that might exist, to follow his lead across the country.

Missouri’s “Band-Aid Man,” Derrick Chievous, a star player of Coach Stewart’s after the Sundvold and Stipanovich era, was once accepting an award. For what, Coach Stewart can’t recall. Maybe for his role in “The Cats From Ol’ Mizzou” rap video. Maybe not.

“He said, ‘There could be a lot of names on this award. But since it’s got mine on it, I’m gonna keep it,’” Coach Stewart remembers. “That’s the way that Coaches vs. Cancer has played out for me. My name’s on it, but the other people are the reason it’s evolved. They keep it working and make it so strong.”

Moving Forward
Just as the Missouri coach had once done, Jim Boeheim also proved that being diagnosed and defeating cancer was no reason to back away from a coaching position. It was instead grounds for a more meaningful, motivational journey. Boeheim had surgery for prostate cancer in the fall of 2001. His Syracuse Orange won the national championship the next season. And since its inception, the Jim and Juli Boeheim Foundation’s BasketBall has raised more than $6.5 million for cancer research.

“I just think you appreciate that you were able to get through it, and I talk about it all the time: The importance of getting checked often and detecting it early. It’s the best way to beat cancer,” Boeheim says. Both coaches are ardent advocates of early detection. For obvious reasons.

“Everyone always asks, ‘What can I do?’” Coach Stewart says. He’s very adamant. “Do what you can do. If you can give money, give money. But if you have a friend, and they need to go to a doctor, pick them up and take them. If someone wants to talk about something, talk with them. Remind everybody to go take their tests. Do the little things.”

The little things seem to come together for Coach Stewart. There’s a fire and charm to his style. He is one school’s spirit and one state’s magic. But his loyalty to both his team and the Coaches vs. Cancer program has made him a celebrated figure nationally. It’s because of Coach’s stubbornness and toughness, says Fraschilla, that he’s found so much success on and off the court — the toughness to fight and beat the disease and the stubbornness to not let it get him down. It’s the way he coached; what’d you expect? “His teams were always hard-nosed, and in order to get that way, you have to have a stubborn coach who’s not going to let the level of intensity of his team slip at all,” Fraschilla says. “And that’s Norm to a T. He is the ultimate competitor, but there’s a compassionate side that I’ve seen, and from a guy who’s supposed to be so tough, that’s heartwarming.”

A few years back, Coach Stewart invited Fraschilla to his Coaches vs. Cancer golf outing. It was scheduled on his 25th wedding anniversary. Fran told his wife it was hard to turn down Coach Stewart — as it is for most — but he would decline the invitation if she requested. “She said ‘Of course not. You go and certainly help Coach out, and we’ll celebrate our 25th when you get back,’” Fraschilla says. “He and Virginia sent my wife a beautiful bouquet of flowers that day. Typical Norm.”

At the time of his departure, Coach Stewart was 62 years old, and his all-time 731 career victories were behind only Bob Knight, Ray Meyer, Phog Allen, Ed Diddle, Henry Iba, Adolph Rupp and Dean Smith. Every man on that list is synonymous with the word Legend. In 1999, Coach Stewart had been involved as a player, assistant or head coach in half of the games that Missouri had played since the beginning of its program. Let that sink in if it hasn’t already. Fifty percent.

There were the eight Big Eight Conference regular-season championships, the six Big Eight Conference post-season tournament titles, 16 NCAA Tournament appearances, Coach of the Year awards, 17 seasons with 20 or more wins and 634 wins at Missouri — far and away the most in school history.

But ask Coach Stewart for a statistic that stands out to him, and he’ll tell you this story. There was a woman who once worked for him during his late years at Missouri. As a child, this woman was diagnosed with leukemia. “At that time, one of 17 kids survived,” he says. “Today, it’s just the reverse. Sixteen out of 17 survive.” Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia is the most common childhood cancer, and according to St. Jude, ALL survival rates went from 4 percent in 1962 to 94 percent today. A man with tireless intensity and a bit of a knack for on-court controversy views his career through the lens of impacting others.

“I think it was Emerson who said it’s very difficult to help somebody without helping yourself more. That’s exactly what happened here,” Coach Stewart says.

The All-American from Shelbyville, Missouri, is a legacy, and legacies survive. They survive through the tales of a storied career, and through vehement efforts to continue a fight against cancer for those beyond him. And it’s his legacy that we stand to applaud.

Photos courtesy of Mizzou Athletics

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Coach Ron Lykins and the extreme athleticism of Mizzou's wheelchair basketball

How do you coach?

I posed that question to Ron Lykins, the gold medal-winning coach of the U.S. Men’s National Wheelchair Basketball team. He’s also the head coach of the MU  team, at home in the historic Brewer Fieldhouse.

For starters, he told me, he doesn’t just coach. “I teach more than I coach,” he says. “Our exams are game days.”

If games are tests, then class is in session every morning at 5:30 a.m. For five days a week at the Mizzou Recreation Center, players on the wheelchair basketball team come to learn from “Professor” Lykins. But replace lectures with intense team drills, the No. 2 pencils with basketballs and students with athletes. Now you have the absolute basic elements of a basketball practice. But just as Lykins isn’t just coaching, these aren’t just basketball practices.

Comparing wheelchair basketball to the able-bodied sport is like comparing kickboxing to boxing. Wheelchair basketball includes most of the game’s main elements, but a mandatory addition to the sport makes it unique: the chair. And not just any chair, a performance sports chair that can uphold abuse and showcase the balance between chair control and raw athletic ability.

“The chair itself is a piece of athletic equipment,” Lykins says. “We got to use our arms to move, start, stop and shoot.”

If you Google “how to shoot a basketball,” it’s nearly impossible to find a tutorial that doesn’t include what to do with your legs. That’s not the case in wheelchair basketball, where lower-body strength is null. “You’re making quick and anaerobic movements, and now you’re trying to shoot on top of that? Something as delicate as shooting, as having a touch? Your arms are dead tired,” Lykins says.

Shooting isn’t even the hardest part – moving is. Not only do players have to steer a wheelchair while simultaneously dribbling the ball, wheelchair basketball requires them to maneuver quickly to make cuts and set screens. It’s not uncommon for players to wear blisters and calluses on their hands like gloves. It’s the same stress that Kyrie Irving puts on his feet when he stops on a dime and hits a spin move. But for these Tigers, it’s on their hands. Any crossovers, hesitations or movement to put a defender in a blender will have an immediate effect on their hands and arms.

As a coach, Lykins knows upper-body strength is a major force of success here, but it’s not what he focuses on.

“Our games are based on positioning,” Lykins says. “Inside position is crucial. In able-bodied basketball, if someone boxes you out, you can still get the rebound by going over them. Not in our game. It’s very fundamentally based. We have to block out.”

The inescapable importance of positioning forces wheelchair basketball to be played as a complete team sport. Isolation plays are almost non-existent, and gameplay draws comparisons to hockey and soccer, where players rely on one another to make certain cuts and properly space the floor.

“In basketball, we have specialists and generalists. I want generalists,” Lykins says. He runs a position-less system that requires players to be able to play inside and out, switch assignments on defense and position players through sets for open looks. The philosophy is like a combination of successful blueprints in the NBA: the San Antonio Spurs selfless style of play on offense and the Golden State Warriors ability to switch defensive responsibilities on screens.

“We want our guys to be able to do a little bit of everything,” he says. “We try to run a motion offense, and with a 35-second shot clock, we really don’t have a lot of time. Everybody’s gotta play everywhere.”

Lykins knows wheelchair basketball has a place in Columbia because he has seen it succeed around the world. As the head coach of the U.S. Men’s National Wheelchair Basketball team, he focuses on the same coaching philosophy: teach and reach the top.

“We teach the national team all the time too. We’re constantly pointing out the little things that could be the difference between gold and silver.”

He knows the intricate details that separate the best and those in second place because he’s won gold medals before. In fact, he’s done it three times with three different U.S. Paralympic gold-medal teams in 2004, 2008 and 2016. Lykins finds gratification in coaching at various levels, but even after winning gold in destinations flush with beauty and history, like Athens or Rio, he prefers competing in Columbia.

“To represent your country in sport at the highest level? There’s nothing better,” Lykins says. “But to me, being at the college level is the best place to be. You get to really see the growth and development, both on and off the court.”

He fosters this competitive progress within the next generation of athletes, understanding the physicality that’s being asked of his players. During games and practices, players tightly strap themselves to their chairs during play – like football players and shoulder pads, they are one with the equipment. Players bump and hit opponents, aggressively jockeying for position and using anything to gain the advantage. In other words, it’s as much of a sport as any other. But Lykins knows not everyone sees it that way. “Some people think, ‘They’re going to be in these hospital chairs, they’re going to be slow, and the dribbling is going to be bad,’ ” Lykins says.

“The athleticism will blow people away.”

He continues to grow Mizzou’s Wheelchair Basketball program, which represents the university in the Central Intercollegiate Division of the National Wheelchair Basketball Association, by “constantly recruiting” potential players to MU. Lykins scans junior tournaments nationwide – that’s how he found players like James Bohnett, a former MU wheelchair basketball player from Berkeley, California, who’s competed since he was a 7-year-old. Bohnett is a double, below-the-knee amputee, the result of contracting amniotic band syndrome prior to birth.

“Wheelchair basketball requires you to think constantly, whether you’re on defense or offense. I chose wheelchair basketball because of its need to be both mentally and physically capable,” Bohnett says. “I was invited by coach Ron Lykins to play for MU and found my opportunity to continue to play the sport I love through my college career.”

Once the players are in his program, Lykins works on the application of character both on and off the hardwood. “We’re trying to teach guys that they’re going to fail, but that it’s only temporary,” Lykins says. “I hope what we do here transfers to everyday life: working as hard as you can, being on time, giving your best effort.”

“[He] knows how to maximize a player’s potential,” Bohnett says. “Even off the court, he cares for his players, making sure that every athlete on the team is doing well. Looking into my future after MU wheelchair basketball, I have a lot of opportunities ahead of me and recognize the support I have through teammates and coaches.”

Lykins continues to look for opportunities for his players, both in wheelchair basketball and outside the sport – success is more than just wins and losses, he says. “If you don’t have people willing to learn, you’re not going to be successful. I think one thing I do well is I’m able to find quality individuals who want to come in here and do well.”

Just as his players have bought into MU, Lykins hopes Tigers fans buy into the team. “Come see how fast it is,” he says. “Come see how physical it is – how guys get knocked down from competing so hard and moving so fast.”

“Come out and watch us play. You’ll be surprised.”

MU Men’s Wheelchair Basketball plays its first tournament of the season Oct. 28-29 in Columbia at MizzouRec. You can find the full schedule here. Photos by Lexi Churchill 

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Glen Elarbee arrived in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, in the summer of 1998 as an undersized, lightly recruited offensive lineman. He was listed at 250 pounds in the Middle Tennessee State University media guide, and after a redshirt season, his weight ballooned all the way up to 257. Even in an upstart program that was trying to find its way as it transitioned to Division I, Elarbee was easy to miss. But when Joe Wickline was hired as the offensive line coach in 1999, he saw a potentially special player, one who was hungry to consume every last detail of his craft.

“Right off the bat, here’s one of the things I remember about him,” Wickline says. “As a coach, you go over materials, you go over concepts. Sometimes you’ll be in the gray area, and you might get away with it. And sometimes there’s a guy in the room. Well, Glen was that guy. He’d raise one eyebrow and halfway close the other eye, and you’d know right then you’d better be on your toes when you had the chalk in your hand because he was going to test you. But he did it in a way that was always constructive. He really wanted to know. He’s truly a student of the game.”

In his first two seasons, Elarbee appeared in 12 games as a reserve, and at the beginning of his junior year, now tipping the scales at a robust 275 pounds, he earned the starting job at center. He never gave it back. The Blue Raiders finished 8-3 in 2001 and won the Sun Belt Conference championship. Playing a schedule that featured games against three SEC teams, MTSU ranked fifth in the country in total offense, seventh in rushing offense and ninth in scoring. Elarbee made 23 consecutive starts and earned all-conference honors in each of his final two seasons.

“He was an amazing overachiever,” recalls Wickline, who now is an assistant at West Virginia. “He played with a big chip on his shoulder.”

It is quite the success story. So we probably shouldn’t be surprised that in his first year as the offensive line coach at Missouri, Elarbee took a unit that was arguably the Tigers’ biggest weakness in 2015 and turned it into one of its greatest strengths. In the season before he arrived, Mizzou ranked 125th in the country in total offense, allowed 88 tackles for loss and scored just 15 touchdowns — they didn’t even reach the end zone in five games. Last year the Tigers led the country with just 35 tackles for loss — their per-game average was the best in the country dating to 2005 — and led the SEC in total offense while allowing a conference-low 14 sacks. They were the only team in the conference to produce a 3,000-yard passer, a 1,000-yard receiver and a 1,000-yard rusher. Most amazing is that the yards and points were piled up behind a line that was breaking in four new starters and entered the season with a combined three career starts. Although Mizzou finished 4-8, Elarbee was one of 40 nominated for the Broyles Award, which honors the top assistant in college football.

Elarbee has deep roots in the South. He played high school ball in the sleepy Georgia town of Carrollton, about 50 miles west of Atlanta. He earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics (and then a master’s in sports management) but as his playing career wound down, he had such a passion for the game that he wanted to stay connected to it. Coaching seemed like a natural fit. He worked for two years at his alma mater as a graduate assistant and the tight ends coach, then was a grad assistant at LSU and Oklahoma State. He returned to coach at hometown West Georgia for a couple of seasons. As a full-time assistant at MTSU and Houston, he matched wits with Barry Odom, who at the time was the defensive coordinator at Memphis. Elarbee saw Odom as a brilliant defensive mind, so when their paths crossed in 2013 at a high school clinic and recruiting event in East Texas, he made it a point to introduce himself.

“He was way ahead of the curve on that side of the ball,” Elarbee says of Odom. “I remember going up to him and saying, ‘I have a tremendous amount of respect for you and what you’re doing.’ Some of the three-down [linemen] stuff he was doing at Memphis was making my life a nightmare. We talked a little bit about football. He was awesome, a good dude, open. We talked some schematics.”

Three years later, after Elarbee’s second season at Arkansas State, the two were talking about a job. Having grown up in SEC country, Elarbee had always dreamed of coaching in the conference. He fondly remembered the trips he had made to Columbia as an assistant, so much so that he envisioned Mizzou as a potential landing spot. He was confident his wife, Holly, and their young son would embrace Columbia as heartily as he had. Of course, knowing for whom he’d be working was no small factor.

Elarbee is a humble, self-deprecating individual with an admitted deadpan sense of humor, so it’s no surprise that he’s quick to deflect the credit for the dramatic turnaround his unit made. He praises the work ethic and commitment of his players. He gives a nod to offensive coordinator Josh Heupel and graduate assistant Jon Cooper. He mentions the benefits gained from practicing against an uber-talented defensive line. (“They give me fits every day”). He notes what a valuable resource Odom is — how he might walk in on a Sunday morning and scribble a scheme on the board, suggesting how the defensive coordinator of an upcoming opponent might be plotting.

Yet it’s impossible to dismiss the work of the 37-year-old Elarbee. So just where did he begin with the reconstruction?

“You always start in the same place, just what we want to be about,” he says. “I tried to talk to the guys about five things we want to believe in. The first is being tough and physical. Then we want to give great effort in everything we do. The third goal we have at the start of spring practice is to play smart and intelligently. Then we hone technique. When we get those four things accomplished, we try to be a tight unit, love each other and want to hang around each other.”

Depth was a concern in the spring of 2016, yet Elarbee saw the problem as an opportunity. “The biggest asset was that those guys got a lot of reps,” he says. “They had to soak up a ton of them. The more you do something, the better you get. And it gave them some versatility to play the left side, the right side, inside, outside.”

Then there was the issue of tempo. Mizzou played as fast as any offense in the country last season. Heupel’s no-huddle attack might have been daunting for an assistant who was teaching and shuffling players and learning the nuances of a new system right along with his troops, but Elarbee was unfazed by it all. “I’m used to having to limit calls and communication and playing the game fast,” he says. Adds Wickline, “I know everybody talks about tempo these days, but I’m here to tell you, we were doing that a long time ago.” As the center, Elarbee had to call out assignments at the line of scrimmage, make a shotgun snap and execute his block, all in the span of a few seconds. He can share those experiences, along with the knowledge he has acquired during his 15 years as a coach. He has played and worked under some of the best offensive minds and at some of the top programs in the sport. Larry Fedora, now the coach at North Carolina, was the offensive coordinator at MTSU. Elarbee worked as a graduate assistant under Les Miles when LSU won the national title in 2007 and for Mike Gundy at Oklahoma State, where he reconnected with Wickline, his former position coach. “He really changed who I was,” Elarbee says of Wickline. “He helped me become a man. He taught me a ton about football and life.”

A 35-year coaching veteran, Wickline got an up-close look at his protégé’s work-in-progress when Mizzou and West Virginia opened their 2016 seasons last September. Although the Mountaineers prevailed, the mentor came away impressed. “I was in the SEC for a number of years, and I’ve watched a lot of cross tape,” Wickline says. “I watched their guys progress, and it really didn’t surprise me. He’s fundamentally sound. He communicates extremely well. His players will like him. He’s got a great deal of passion. He doesn’t have a giant ego.”

In other words, Elarbee is a reflection of the player Wickline coached in Murfreesboro: an old-school offensive lineman who would never be outworked and whose love for the game rubbed off on others. It can be contagious. Elarbee coaches without a whistle, preferring instead to say tweet, tweet to signal the end of a drill. He considers the prospect of a whistle dangling from his lips an opportunity lost, a chance missed to communicate with his players. To teach — isn’t that what coaching is all about?

As a player at MTSU, Elarbee owned three pet piranhas. Of course he did. Because nothing screams offensive lineman like a pet piranha. But three? “Can’t have one or two,” he explains. “Not healthy for them.” Or him, as it turns out. On the eve of a game against Tennessee, Elarbee sliced his left hand while cutting up meat to feed his prized possessions. The good news: The gash was on his non-snapping hand. He taped the wound and didn’t miss a down. As a coach, he may have head-butted a chair or bumped a meeting-room wall —  “I’m not sure I’m supposed to divulge those secrets,” he quips —  but it was only to drive home a point. Old school, no doubt about it. At the same time, he keeps pushing ahead, searching for a tweak that might be as subtle as an adjusted hand placement — ever in search of an edge, always trying to get better.

“As a coach, you never feel you’re far enough ahead,” Elarbee says. “You always see that next step you need to take. It’s hard to look back and say, ‘We were here,’ when all you want is to keep looking forward.”

Then allow us: Suffice it to say that the Missouri offensive line is in a much better place than it was a year ago.

Photos: Caroline Hall

The post Life in the Trenches appeared first on ZOUNation Magazine.

Perspective has helped shape the career of Mizzou's Cuonzo Martin

Through adversity and a cancer diagnosis, one unwavering theme has persisted in Cuonzo Martin’s life: continued perspective.

When you’ve been tasked with rebuilding a major-college basketball program, it’s important to have perspective. Cuonzo Martin has a Ph.D. in it. He grew up on the crime-ridden, drug-infested streets of East St. Louis, Illinois. In 1991, he arrived at Purdue on a knee so unstable that the medical staff questioned whether he would ever play for the Boilermakers. And at 26, he wondered whether he’d live to see his next birthday after a doctor diagnosed him with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

“For me, losing was tough, as a player and a coach,” Martin says. “Then you understand there are bigger things in life. Learn from the losses and keep moving. Applaud the wins when you get them. Value life itself, and don’t take the little things for granted. Every birthday is important because there’s no guarantee there will be one next year.”

Resurrect a program that over the previous three seasons was 27-68? No sweat. That’s the job facing Martin, who on March 20 was introduced as the 19th coach in Missouri basketball history. After head-coaching gigs at Missouri State, Tennessee and California, he is essentially coming home to a team that is on NCAA probation, has APR concerns and is lean on talent. Or at least was.

Basketball programs are rarely turned around in the spring and summer, but the Tigers are making an awfully good go at it. Already, the resurgence has been nothing short of remarkable — think a snowball rolling down the mountain, as Missouri athletic director Jim Sterk puts it.

On the morning of March 15, PowerMizzou.com reported that the Porters — Michael Sr., Michael Jr. and Jontay — were yearning to come home. They had left Columbia in 2016 for the Pacific Northwest. Dad had accepted a job as an assistant coach at the University of Washington; Michael Jr., the No. 1 recruit in the 2017 class, had signed a letter of intent with Washington; and Jontay, a five-star talent in the ’18 class, had committed to the program as well. On that March afternoon, Missouri announced Martin’s hiring; hours later, Washington fired coach Lorenzo Romar. In a matter of days, Washington released Michael Jr. from his letter of intent, Michael Sr. accepted a job as an assistant coach on Martin’s staff, and, as Missouri fans waited in anticipation, Michael Jr. announced his commitment to the Tigers, tweeting: “Mizzou Nation, I’m coming home!!!” (Jontay, a 6-foot, 11-inch power forward, took his official visit on April 24-25 and committed soon thereafter. On August 9, he announced he was reclassifying and would join his brother on the court this season.)

The good news kept coming: On April 3, combo guard C.J. Roberts, a four-star prospect from North Richland Hills, Texas, said he would not ask out of the letter of intent he had signed in the fall of 2016. Six days later, at the end of his official visit, point guard Blake Harris, a three-star recruit from Raleigh, North Carolina, committed to the Tigers. Harris, like Porter, had originally signed with Washington. On May 3, Kassius Robertson, a sharp-shooting graduate transfer from Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, came on board.

Meanwhile, Porter Jr. put on his recruiting hat, encouraging other elite players to join him in Columbia. Jeremiah Tilmon, a four-star center from East St. Louis, was granted his release from Illinois. He committed to Mizzou on May 15. The biggest surprise involved Kevin Knox II, a 6-foot, 8-inch wing from Tampa who was on the same visit with Harris and Porter Jr. The ninth-ranked recruit in the country, Knox had been courted for two years by bluebloods Duke, Kentucky and North Carolina, along with Florida State, where his father played football. Missouri had been in the picture for a mere three weeks when Martin, with an assist from Porter Jr., persuaded Knox to use his last official visit on a trip to Columbia. He was in town with his parents on the same weekend as Harris and Porter, and the welcome the three stars received from students was overwhelming. Although Knox tweeted on May 6 that he would attend Kentucky, Harris, after indicating that a decision wasn’t imminent, came away so impressed that he committed before the weekend was over.

“I’ve never seen anything like that on a campus I’ve been a part of as a player or a coach,” says Martin. So what’s the attraction? What about Cuonzo Martin is so appealing to the players and their parents?

Roberts is an interesting case study. He had fallen in love with Mizzou and Columbia during a visit last year. “I know you want me to visit Georgia and LSU,” Craig Roberts recalls his son saying. “I’ll go, but I know I’m coming here.” C.J. signed his letter of intent in November.

But he signed on believing he would play for Kim Anderson. Craig Roberts has met a lot of college basketball coaches during the 22 years he has worked on the AAU summer circuit. Martin wasn’t one of them, so Roberts understandably had his reservations. Like any good parent, he conducted background checks. Everyone kept saying the same thing: Cuonzo is going to be great for your son. (Some coaches even reached out unsolicited.) Still, Roberts needed more reassurance that he could trust Martin. So he convened a meeting with Martin at Richland High School and invited, among others, C.J.’s coach, Richard Bacon, and his long-time trainer, Donny Beacham. Martin got his message across.

“He was very straightforward, very matter-of-fact,” Craig Roberts says. “He did not waver. He told C.J., ‘There are going to be some days when you don’t like me too much because I’m going to be all over you. But I know, and you’re going to know, that I still love you. I’m not afraid to put my arm around you and hug you and tell you I love you.’

“He told C.J. he was going to get what he earns. If you earn 30 minutes, you’re going to get 30 minutes. If you earn 20 shots, you’re going to get 20 shots. If you don’t earn it, you don’t get it.”

Going back to early 2017, it was the worst-kept secret in college basketball that Missouri might be in the market for a new coach. Never mind the run of defeats. The program was bleeding money. As recently as two years ago, the empty seats at Mizzou Arena had resulted in a $2.3 million loss in ticket sales alone. The Tigers were 5-7 and had suffered home losses to North Carolina Central, Eastern Illinois and Lipscomb when Sterk issued a press release on January 4. “I clearly understand where our program is currently, and rest assured that we are all disappointed with where we stand entering SEC play,” he said.

As he kept one eye on the basketball court, Sterk began working behind the scenes, putting together a list of prospective candidates. He leaned on a couple of coaches at his previous stops — Steve Fisher at San Diego State and Tony Bennett, then of Washington State and now the coach at Virginia. He used a family connection to pick the brain of Mike White at Florida; White’s brother, Brian, is a senior associate athletic director at Mizzou. The preliminary work gave Sterk a better feel for the market. Research in hand, he went to the Board of Curators and outlined what kind of money he’d need if he decided to make a change. It wasn’t going to be cheap.

“I knew we had to have that done ahead of time, otherwise, we might not get somebody,” Sterk says. He recalls the message he delivered to the board and university leadership: “We’re going to have to get out of our comfort zone a little bit if we want a sitting Power Five [conference] coach.”

Though it wasn’t announced until the end of the regular season, Sterk informed Anderson he was out after a February 25 loss at Ole Miss. The wheels were set in motion. And as he began his covert search for what would be his first significant hire at Mizzou, Sterk knew what his budget was.

“Once you’re in the middle of it, there are piranhas out there,” he says. “It’s a good thing we did [get approval], because we were able to put our best foot forward with Cuonzo. I had the security of knowing the board was supportive of what I was doing. I knew what my offer could be. That helped us beat Illinois. Cal came back at him as well.”

Martin didn’t come cheaply: $21 million over seven years. It’s what the market dictated. Plus, the fact that the Board of Curators authorized Sterk to spend that kind of money spoke to the university’s commitment to making basketball relevant again.

Naturally, Sterk kicked the tires on other candidates, but his search kept coming back to Martin. He came highly recommended by his peers and those for whom he had worked. Sandy Barber had hired Martin at Cal in 2014. She’s now the athletic director at Penn State. Close friends, she and Sterk had started together as associate athletic directors at Tulane. As the president at Missouri State, Mike Nietzel had given Martin his first head-coaching opportunity, in 2008. The two remain friends to this day. The more people Sterk contacted, the more sold he became. Most appealing was that he never ran across anyone who had a bad thing to say about Martin.

“I was really impressed that he had been a head coach at three institutions, and he had a great background,” Sterk says. “Every place got better. Every place wanted to keep him. He had been hardened under some adversity. He had gone through some personal stuff, with cancer and where he grew up. He was giving back to the community.”

Then there were the intangibles: Martin was born and raised in the shadow of the Arch. He has local recruiting connections. “That was an added bonus that could really help us begin to make better inroads into the St. Louis area and all of Missouri,” Sterk says.

David Lee, Tyler Hansbrough, Brandon Rush, Bradley Beal, Otto Porter, Ben McLemore, OG Anunoby, Jason Tatum: You could field a pretty salty team with the litany of stars who have escaped the state over the past 15 years. Martin and his staff will recruit nationally if not globally, but the foundation can be built by persuading talented kids to stay close to home.

Enter Michael Porter Jr. When the family packed up and moved to Seattle, all indications were that Mizzou had let the biggest of stars escape. But time away helped the family realize just how much they missed Columbia. That news was relayed to Sterk in February by women’s basketball coach Robin Pingeton. It was yet another family connection: Pingeton’s sister, Lisa, is married to Michael Sr.; Pingeton also coaches Bri and Cierra Porter, and Michael Sr. had previously worked on her staff as an assistant coach.

Because the Porters had left town before he came on board, Sterk had never seen Michael Jr. play. Google became his friend. “I got really excited about that possibility,” Sterk says. “I couldn’t imagine this working out as well as it has. I had hoped we would create some momentum and an opportunity to get Michael, but I didn’t know what kind of recruiter he was. To have someone of his stature is great — No. 1 recruit in the country, McDonald’s All-American. He’s just a real genuine kid, and he understands how he can be better by having better players around him. He was the wild card I didn’t envision.”

As of mid-April, season ticket sales were up almost 1,500, a number that has been growing daily. Based on feedback from the Board of Curators and others in St. Louis and Kansas City, Sterk senses a really good feeling around the state.

Gabe DeArmond, the publisher of PowerMizzou.com, has the numbers to quantify the spike in enthusiasm. From March 5 to March 30, average page views on his site doubled over the week before Anderson stepped down. March saw a 41 percent increase in page views, and subscribers spent 72 percent more time on the site than in February. As for message posts — because, after all, everyone wants to tell Sterk and Martin how to do their jobs — March had 21,000 more posts than February and 10,000 more than any other month in the past year. It’s been good for business too. “I can tell you that in the calendar month after Kim Anderson’s resignation, we’ve never added more subscribers over a 31-day period,” DeArmond says.

The draw, of course, is Porter, a fluid 6-foot, 10-inch wing who can do it all. Among other things, scouts rave about his length, the elevation he gets on his jump shot, his ability to play inside and out and his three-point range. He is the first overall pick in more than one 2018 NBA mock draft.

“First and foremost, as far as his off-the-court attributes, you have to give a lot of credit to his parents,” Martin says. “They put him in a great position to be a successful young man, not just in sports but in life. You can see his humility, his ability to embrace other young guys. He understands how to have love and compassion for other people. As far as his ability to play the game, again his mom and dad did a great job of putting him in the position, working on his shot. Here’s a guy, 6-10 or 6-11, the way he shoots the ball, the way he handles the ball — obviously his parents did a great job in his development.”

The Tigers will play fast, because that’s the way kids want to play these days. Assistant coaches Cornell Mann and Chris Hollender will oversee the offense. Most recently an assistant at Oakland (Michigan), Mann plans to install a system not unlike the one run by Iowa State when he was an assistant in Ames from 2011-15. Martin chuckles at those who label it an NBA-style offense.

“Everybody says NBA-style because it sounds good, but what does that really mean?” he asks. “We’re playing with a 30-second shot clock, so when you hear ‘NBA-style,’ you say, ‘Which NBA team is that?’ We’ll try to generate more offense, put guys in position to score in the first seven to 10 seconds of the shot clock. If not, execute your offense.”

With the assistance of Porter Sr., Martin will coach up the defense because, well, that’s what he does best. It’s a mindset and toughness he undoubtedly adopted growing up in East St. Louis and as a disciple of Purdue coach Gene Keady. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that Martin even has a little Norm Stewart in his philosophy. “I get so consumed with the defensive side of the ball,” Martin says. “That part will never change. You have to have that to be successful.”

How does he measure success? Martin is not a goal-setter in the strict sense of the word, but he knows what the expectations are: Get into the NCAA tournament, then play late into March, if not April. He believes the Tigers aren’t far off, that even on a team that finished 8-24 last season, there are pieces to build around. Throw in the influx of talent and the fact that the SEC gauntlet is not overly daunting, and the turnaround can be swift. Look at TCU, which went from 12-21 in 2015-16 to an NCAA tournament bubble team and NIT champs under first-year coach Jamie Dixon. Craig Roberts points to the dramatic resurgence at SMU. So at the same time he preaches patience, Martin doesn’t want the fans, and especially the students, to temper expectations.

“Our fans have had some tough times in the past several years,” he says. “So we want those people to be excited about what we’re doing, because that means there’s passion and enthusiasm. It’s our job to be entertainers on the court. We need to work as hard as we can to be consistently successful. The energy [among fans] is good. That’s the same thing we talk to our players about. We’re better people with more energy and enthusiasm.”

Martin would have loved to come to Columbia when he was a candidate for the job in 2011, and who knows what state the program would be in had that happened. Now he arrives with six more years of experience, 205 games on his résumé, and lessons learned on and off the court.

“The experience and the wisdom of going through something over the course of time helps you develop as a coach and a leader — making mistakes when you coach in games, learning from those mistakes, beating big programs early in your career and understanding how you beat those programs, developing young men, and allowing your staff to be a part of what you’re doing, not just recruiting, but the whole piece: the video recording, scouting, watching film, developing student-athletes. You need everybody to be successful,” Martin says.

It helps when you can maintain perspective. Martin was a sophomore at Purdue when he walked into an Arby’s in West Lafayette, Indiana, on the first weekend of the 1992 school year. It was by chance that he bumped into Roberta Jones, the woman who would become the love of his life. “I like to tell the story that she came up to introduce herself to me, but she tells it totally differently,” he says with a laugh. “So we’ll take her version.”

Wooing Roberta was his first — and biggest — recruiting coup. The courtship lasted almost three years; they were married on June 14, 1995. Son Joshua arrived two years later. Martin was doing what he loved most — playing basketball. Life was good. And then came the cancer diagnosis, the discovery of a four-inch tumor, the news that his odds of beating the disease weren’t good, and four months of strength-sapping chemotherapy treatments. Martin might not be one for setting goals, but he made one then: to see his son turn 18. Joshua was four months old.

“If you listen to that story and aren’t inspired,” DeArmond says, “then you’ve got no soul.”

Martin had his last treatment and was declared cancer-free on April 20, 1998. You remember the dates. “Those dates are like Christmas to me,” he says. “I remember them vividly.” Today, Joshua is a 19-year-old freshman at Purdue. Chase is 15, and daughter Addison is 9.

“I’ll never forget when the doc said it’s life-threatening,” Martin says. “And you’re sitting there wondering, Will I be here tomorrow? That’s why I said you try to applaud those little things in life. Often you can’t get them back.”

The first game of the Cuonzo Martin era at Mizzou is still three months away, but in a short time he has electrified a fan base and put Missouri basketball back on the map. It’s remarkable when you think about it. He and his staff have hit the recruiting trail hard. He has traveled around the state conducting countless interviews while spreading his message. Not everyone has the talent of Michael Porter Jr., so while Martin talks about basketball, he also stresses the importance of developing young men and enriching their lives. Authentic — that’s the word that comes to mind.

And perspective.

Photos: Mizzou Athletics 

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It's Not All About Takedowns

How Brian Smith built the Missouri wrestling program into a national powerhouse.

It’s match day, so Brian Smith walks onto the floor of the Hearnes Center to watch his wrestlers take on their opponents. But he can barely hear his own voice over the deafening cheers of the crowd. Every seat in the 13,000-capacity arena is filled. His voice strains as he tries to shout over the roar — he needs to tell his wrestlers to remember one thing and one thing only: follow their team philosophy, Tiger Style. Before he can get the words out, the crowd begins chanting, “Ti-ger-style, Ti-ger-style” — the pace quickening until it matches the frenetic speed of the wrestlers’ heartbeats.

Smith takes a step back. This scene, he explains, is a dream of his.

Since he joined the University of Missouri wrestling team as head coach in 1998, he has transformed the team from an unranked program to a national powerhouse that’s consistently ranked in the Top 10 of Division I wrestling and has produced two Olympic athletes. The team, however, still isn’t drawing sold-out crowds — at least, not yet.

“That day is coming,” Smith says. “And it’s going to happen while I’m here. I really believe it.”

If the past 18 years have taught Smith anything, it’s that when he really believes something, it’s only a matter of time before it happens.

In 1998, Mizzou took a risk hiring the unknown Smith, a 32-year-old at the time, as head coach.

“Mizzou was in the Big 12 at the time, so getting hired was a dream come true,” Smith says. “Of course, now I always tease the administration that after Mizzou moved to the SEC, they took my dream away.”

All jokes aside, in 1998 Smith found himself in a challenging position. He entered a program in need of drastic reform even beyond the mat. At the time, many of the athletes weren’t prioritizing going to class, focusing instead on their social lives, and Smith quickly determined that the culture needed a change.

“I came in and said, ‘We’re going to do all the little things right; we may not be able to beat people yet, but we’ll do the little things right,’ ” he says. “A lot of the guys didn’t have any expectations or think they could be great. I needed to fix that.”

Smith had been training for years to build players up in a sport that revolves around taking players down. At Mizzou, he had the chance to make his greatest impact yet.

Although he now found himself in charge of a Division 1 program, Smith had never intended on becoming a wrestler. As a kid, he had missed lengthy spans of school due to illness — he suffered from asthma and came down with pneumonia seven times. He was small and sickly, but “Little Brian,” as his family called him, stayed active. The Binghamton, New York, native grew up playing basketball and football. In fifth grade, he tried wrestling and he hated it. It wasn’t the fun, mainstream sport he could play with friends.

The self-described “mean point guard” spent most of his free time shooting hoops outside his house, but his dream was to follow in his father’s footsteps: becoming a high school football coach.

But that all changed when Smith was 14. His poor health became so severe that his doctor gave the family an ultimatum: either undergo major lung surgery, or the family could move to a warmer climate in hopes of improving his health. His father had just taken a sales job in New York, but the family decided to relocate to Florida.

Once they had moved, Smith’s dad suggested he give wrestling another shot — if only to help him become stronger for football. This time around, something clicked.

“When I started wrestling, I realized that — more than with any other sport — you accomplish what you put into it,” he says. “And that became the reason I fell in love with it. It became my life.”

Moving to Florida allowed Smith to rediscover wrestling, but ultimately, wrestling was the force that moved him. He went on to become a two-time state wrestling champion in high school, then moved on to Michigan State University, where he was a three-time All-Big Ten wrestler and a four-time letterman.

He had many titles to his name, but Smith never let go of his dream to become a coach. In 1992, he was offered a part-time assistant coaching position at Cornell. He decided to take it after following advice from his favorite coach — his dad.

“My dad said to me, ‘One of my dreams was to be a college or NFL coach. You’re young and single, you can go after this’, ” Smith says. “I thought, i’ll do this for a couple years, and if it doesn’t work i’ll get another high school job.”

He believed. He took the chance and moved. And in the end, he says, belief is something that has carried him through.

After arriving on the college scene, Smith quickly proved himself. At Cornell, he put together two of the nation’s top-10 recruiting classes and helped win two Ivy League Championships as an assistant coach. In 1997, he accepted his first head coaching job at Syracuse at a time when many schools were eliminating their wrestling programs. The satisfaction wasn’t fully there; his dream, after all, was to lead a Big 10 or Big 12 program. He kept pushing further, interviewing for 10 different coaching jobs, including Mizzou’s.

The Missouri program was in rough shape when he arrived, but Smith believed he was the person to turn it around. It took a lot of short steps over a long period of time, but Smith devoted his efforts to recruiting up-and-coming wrestlers who identified with the culture he was creating. That also meant losing the players who didn’t want to be there. The rankings showed the team moving down in the standings, but Smith saw something different: his players grew more confident, building themselves up despite the statistics.

After three or four years of hard work, the program was noticeably different. Smith’s “aha” moment came with Jeremy Spates. The wrestler, who was part of the team in the early 2000s, shouted “Tiger Style” when they broke down the huddle at practice and meets. Spates took the tradition from his high school team in Oklahoma, the Norman Tigers. To them, it was a pump-up cheer. For the Missouri Tigers, it became a way of life.

Tiger Style, Smith says, is a belief; the foundation for everything. Once his players believed they could be successful wrestlers, they could move on to the next level: competition. After they were competitive, they could further progress in Tiger Style to its final step: winning.

“Looking back on where we started, I always encouraged players to do a little bit more, and a little more,” he says. “Over the years, it’s brought us to where we are now.”

The efforts of Smith’s investment in the program have also paid off. The move to the SEC was a challenging one for the Tigers, as Mizzou became the only team in the league with a competitive wrestling program. But Smith never lost sight of his goal, which was to recruit players to join the Tiger family that now competes in the Mid-American Conference.

That effort requires constant hustle. Much of Smith’s job is staying on top of fundraisers and campaigns to raise money for the team. But he doesn’t see it as a dreaded obligation. “I don’t use the term, ‘fundraising’, ”he says. “I use the term ‘people-raising’. ”

By people-raising, he means developing a relationship with others. Whether he’s on a plane, in a store or in his Bible group, he takes every opportunity to invite those around him to watch a wrestling match. It works. His Bible group includes 10-12 people, none of whom were wrestling fans. But all of them recently traveled to Oklahoma State to watch the team.

“People want to believe in a cause,” Smith says. “In general, people will give to a charity not because they want that individual charity to succeed, but because they want that cause to be successful. That’s why I promote Tiger Style. It’s a belief.”

It’s a belief that has carried some of his players to great feats. Mizzou’s program has seen unprecedented success in recent years. Smith has coached 22 All-Americans to 42 top-eight performances, and five Tigers to seven national championships. As the winningest coach in program history, Smith has compiled a 237-92-3 record at Missouri over his 18-season tenure. In the 2014-15 season, the Tigers finished at a perfect 24-0.

These are concrete numbers to measure success. What’s harder to quantify is the level of investment Smith has in each of his wrestlers. He encourages academic excellence, and the wrestlers vie for the Tiger Cup, which signifies achievement in athletics, academics and community involvement. It’s the only male team to have won it in recent years, a fact in which Smith takes pride. Tiger Style factors into their academic success.

He also helps the student-athletes find summer jobs. He reminds them to study hard. And, in special instances, he follows them around the world when they compete on the Olympic stage.

“It’s really the ultimate embodiment of Tiger Style when young men believe in it so much they make the Olympic team like j’den Cox and Ben Askren did,” Smith says. “To be able to compete at the highest level. That’s something else.”

It would also be “something else” to “people-raise” enough that the team is able to draw sold-out crowds to the Hearnes Center.
Smith can see it now. He believes it will happen. He knows it’s only a matter of time.

Photos: Travis Smith

The post It’s Not All About Takedowns appeared first on ZOUNation Magazine.

Why everyone’s talking about Robin Pingeton’s ‘Blue-Collar Basketball’

Robin Pingeton’s vision was to build a lasting basketball program at Missouri. Now that the task is accomplished, she and her Tigers want more.

No impression of Robin Pingeton is complete without her arms spread wide, her knees bent, her feet pumping furiously and a look of sheer intensity knitted across her face. This is how the coach of seven years would like her charges on the Missouri women’s basketball team to play defense. If they’re not living up to this standard, she’s surely taking a second out of practice to show them exactly how she wants it done.

“She’ll be getting after someone and drop down in a stance and be like, ‘If I can still do it, you guys can do it. We kind of give her trouble. I think she’s still got it.” That’s senior guard Lindsey Cunningham talking about “it.”

If that “it” refers to the athletic prowess to match up with today’s Division-I athletes, nearly 30 years after the close of her playing career, Pingeton would have to disagree.

“Even though my mind is younger than, maybe, my body, I don’t think any of our girls are expecting me to come out and dominate a game of one-on-one,” she says, laughing. “I stick to the treadmill, where it’s safe.”

If Cunningham was referring to the passion and grittiness that have gotten Pingeton this far, well, then she certainly does still have “it.”

Last season, every day before practice, Pingeton and guard Carrie Shephard teamed up for a series of two-on-two games against guard Juanita Robinson and forward Cierra Porter.

Senior guard Lianna Doty has seen Pingeton dive on the floor for a loose ball — this one was during a half-court game of four-on-four starring coaches and members of the Tigers’ staff. If you’re going to preach “blue-collar basketball” as Pingeton does, you had better practice it as well.

She’s been preaching — and practicing — for her entire 21-year coaching career.

“She’s all about something so much bigger than herself,” Doty says. “She wants to build something special here, and she wants to do it the right way, based on a foundation of relationships and hard work and a family that’s real.”

After nearly seven years at Missouri, Pingeton and the Tigers are on the cusp of greatness. It began with losing seasons in her first two years at the helm. That was followed by three straight Women’s NIT berths. All were stepping stones toward last season, when the Tigers posted a 22-10 record — their most wins since 2000-01 — and beat BYU to post the team’s first NCAA Tournament win in 15 years.

As the playbook would show, Pingeton wasn’t interested in quick fixes. She took the job ahead of the 2010-11 season focused on digging in, working hard and building something that would last — just as she was at Illinois State for seven years prior to coming to Columbia; just as she was at her alma mater, St. Ambrose, as a 23-year-old, first-time head coach in the early ’90s; just as she was when she played as an undersized post for the university’s Fighting Bees, setting program career records in points and rebounds; and just as she was pitching around her family’s farm and salvage yard growing up.

Pingeton has never known any other way: show before you tell. Set the example, and everything else will fall into place.

“Players don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care,” Pingeton says. “My goals are to compete for championships, but my passion is to impact people’s lives and make a positive influence. It goes way beyond the sport.

“Sooner or later, the ball’s going to stop bouncing. What’s going to last are the relationships.”
 

College coaches came to the Becker house in Atkins, Iowa, a town of less than 1,000 people about 20 miles west of Cedar Rapids, to see Lisa, the best female high school basketball player in the Hawkeye State. Robin, three years her junior, would make sure she was putting up shots in the driveway as the coaches made house calls.

Just in case one of them wanted to give her a look.

“There was a lot of attention around me at that time, and I think she took that personally,” her sister, Lisa (Becker) Porter says. “She knew what she was capable of as a player, and she was always striving to show me that she was better than me. Now we look back at it and laugh at some of the situations in which we found ourselves.”

So the sisters were a little competitive with each other. They also had a close bond and the desire to push each other to be their best — sound familiar? It’s the same competitive/loving nature as some of the sister duos Pingeton coaches today.

Arlo and Judy Becker didn’t give their four children a choice other than to earn everything they received. They put them to work after school and on the weekends. Tractor pulls, demolition derbies, stock-car races — everyone did their part.

“We did everything: pit passes, entry fees, concession stands, selling trophies, presenting trophies. My brother was the PA announcer,” Pingeton says. “We actually provided some of the cars, too, from the salvage yard.”

The only times the four weren’t expected to help out around the house or at Becker Auto Salvage were when they were active in sports. That’s where Pingeton’s true passion lies: in athletics. Even with her impromptu driveway shooting displays, she didn’t get the same major-college attention as 6-foot, 4-inch Lisa. A 5-foot, 10-inch post player like her sister, Pingeton got her name out there largely through highlight tapes her mother compiled and circulated. She chose St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa, in part because she could be a two-sport athlete. Pingeton also played softball, and by the end of her college career, she was an NAIA All-American in both sports.

“She was arguably the best player we were able to recruit,” says Lisa Bluder, head basketball coach at the University of Iowa, who coached Pingeton at St. Ambrose. Bluder is now the winningest women’s basketball coach in Iowa Hawkeyes history. “She was the hardest worker I had. That’s what you always want, is when your best player is your hardest worker. She definitely was.”

Pingeton — or “Robin Becker,” as notated all over the St. Ambrose record book — finished her career with 2,502 points and 1,261 rebounds. During her time on campus, the Fighting Bees posted a record of 127-11, including a 68-3 mark over her final two seasons.

The Missouri players who know about Pingeton’s collegiate greatness have probably pieced it together through the grapevine. She never brings it up.

“She actually gets a little bit awkward when it’s about her,” Cunningham says. “I heard she was a pretty good ballplayer, but she wants none of the glory from it. She wants us to enjoy the experience.”

When the final horn blew on her playing career, it “ripped out (her) heart.” Coaching wasn’t on her radar until that point, only playing ball and finishing her business degree, but it was time for the next phase.

Lisa knew how her sister would approach it. “From the very get-go, she was a go-getter,” Porter says. “I think it made her have that edge a little more. Like, ‘I have something to prove here.’”
 

 
St. Ambrose wasn’t much of a consideration for Jenny DeSmet. She was from nearby Moline, Illinois, and wanted to get out of the Quad Cities for collegiate ball. At the very least though, she wanted to give sixth-year St. Ambrose head coach Robin Becker the courtesy of listening to the pitch.

“I was almost going to turn her down immediately. But, just listening to her, she had me sold with her vision, her passion,” says Jenny (DeSmet) Putnam, who played for Pingeton 1997-2000.

Putnam has been with Pingeton as an assistant coach for the past 14 years, through her tenures at Illinois State (2003-10) and now Missouri.

Although Pingeton has never been afraid to adapt with the times, she has also stayed true to the core tenets she sold Putnam on nearly 20 years ago.

“There’s so much more to people in life, [those who] have had to do all the little things, [who] are not afraid to do the dirty work,” Putnam says. “Nothing’s above her. Nothing’s below her. She’s just been self-made, and she has worked her tail off.”
Bluder gave Pingeton her first shot as an assistant straight out of college, working with the post players and helping recruit at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. After only two years, before the 1992-93 season, Pingeton got her first head coaching job back at St. Ambrose.

She had the unenviable task of continuing the winning tradition laid down by previous coaches, Bluder included. She also had to serve as head coach to players who, just two years prior, had been following her lead as a senior.

“Someone gave me great advice. They said at such a young age, it’s always better to come in maybe a little stricter and tougher, because you can always lighten up a bit,” Pingeton says. “That’s versus coming in trying to be their buddy and then, a couple years later, trying to shore things up and get them to toe the line.

“I’m still not a good loser, but I was a really, really bad loser back then,” she adds, with a laugh. “And my poor players had to get in my van on those long road trips.”

Because, you see, she drove the team van as well. And served as the equipment manager. And the strength and conditioning coach. All because St. Ambrose was such a streamlined operation that she was basically — outside of a couple of graduate assistants — the coaching staff.

Her players still see that ethos at work in her today. On road trips, she’ll send the players from the bus into the hotel while she unloads their luggage.

“It’s just built so much character,” Doty says. “She has not gone away from that. She has the perspective of being able to succeed with whatever you have.”

Pingeton went 192-76 over eight seasons at St. Ambrose, advancing to the NAIA quarterfinals twice. After three seasons assisting coach Bill Fennelly at Iowa State in Ames, Iowa — years during which the Cyclones made two NCAA Tournaments and won the 2001 Big 12 Tournament — she got her first crack as a Division-I head coach at Illinois State in Normal, Illinois. After two losing seasons in her first three years, the Redbirds ripped off four straight 20-win campaigns.

As her two college coaching mentors, Bluder and Fennelly, headed established major-conference programs in her home state, Pingeton was positioning herself to start one of her own.

“All Robin needed was an opportunity, and she was going to run with it,” Bluder says.

As the 2009-10 season wound down, then-Missouri athletic director Mike Alden made it clear to Pingeton that she was on his short list for the Show Me State job. She, in turn, made it clear to him that, although flattered by the attention, she had a WNIT to coach. They’d talk after.

So Alden sent spies from the athletic department to Illinois State’s games. They didn’t wear Missouri gear, didn’t identify themselves as representatives from Columbia. They were there to monitor Pingeton in her natural habitat.

They found two things. One: all the good things they’d heard about Pingeton were absolutely true. Two: she was costing Missouri an awful lot in travel expenses. The Redbirds didn’t stop winning until the WNIT semifinals.

Alden and the rest of the search committee met with Pingeton in a hotel near the St. Louis airport and listened to her talk about building a program based on hard work, selflessness, respect and positivity. She was reading straight from Alden’s handbook, and she didn’t even know it.

“She set a foundation that has an opportunity to have long-term success,” Alden says. “That’s exactly — exactly — what she talked about in that interview all those years ago.”
 

 
Porter has had the opportunity to view Pingeton’s time at Missouri through a number of different lenses. They’re sisters, of course.

And until May, Lisa’s husband, Michael, was employed as a director of operations, then assistant coach, on Pingeton’s staff at Missouri. But the Porter family moved to Washington, where Michael was hired as an assistant men’s basketball coach.

Except, here’s the thing, daughters Bri and Cierra still play for their aunt at Missouri. Bri is a junior. Cierra is a sophomore. Both are post players, like their mother and aunt.

“I’m hearing things from my girls, my husband and my sister, and there is so much that goes into building a program like what Robin has done and continues to do,” Lisa Porter says. “The cool thing about seeing this come to fruition is seeing that it’s not just talk, that her priority is the people. The same way she strives to be the best version of herself, she’s striving to help them become the best versions of themselves.”

Pingeton keeps two families in balance: her biological one and her basketball one.

She transfers the brand of love that she’s learned from the former to the latter. That everything is earned, not given. That a job’s not worth doing unless it’s done right.

“It’s about planting your feet, rolling up your sleeves and going to work,” Pingeton says. “Every step along the way has impacted me greatly as a coach and person, just to be surrounded by the people I have.”

Her players can expect some vitriol out of her. If they’re not doing what they’re supposed to be doing, she’ll let them know. If the freshmen aren’t grasping something, she’ll make sure they get where she’s coming from, like she did during a recent individual workout session. Doty and Cunningham shot each other knowing glances. They’d been there before.

“She demands so much from you, but she loves so hard too,” Doty says. “It’s one of those relationships where you know she’s going to get the absolute best out of you because she cares so much about you. She has a really soft side, a really understanding side and she has a really hard, ‘let’s get our nose to the grindstone and go to work’ side.”

Doty and Cunningham can’t get anything by her at this point, and Pingeton can tell by their body language if something is troubling them. She knows, without prompting, when to push, when to console, when to encourage, when to motivate.

During the 2014-15 season, before a road game at Florida, Cunningham got a call from the front desk at the team hotel. Someone had left her something.

She came down and found a two-page, handwritten note from Pingeton telling her how proud she was of her and how she had developed as a point guard that season, how encouraged she was by the way Cunningham had rebounded from the early season adversity that beset the team.

Pingeton knows her team. She knows her players’ rhythms. But she’s not naive enough to think she knows it all. That’s why, Cunningham says, Pingeton has meetings with players and staff members on this theme: “What can I do to be better for you?”

“I want to keep learning and growing until the day I die,” Pingeton says. “So every day I wake up and think, ‘How can I be better today?’ Every day I’m trying to grow and get better. Hopefully, I’ve gotten wiser with my years.”

At Missouri, that philosophy has translated into a program that has posted four straight winning seasons for the first time since 1986-90. It has led to a Tigers team on the rise, with upperclassmen including Cunningham, Doty, Sierra Michaelis and Jordan Frericks (out for the season with a torn ACL) mixing with talented sophomores Cierra Porter and Lindsey’s younger sister, Sophie, who was last year’s SEC Freshman of the Year.

Missouri has reached a peak, but also wants to keep climbing. And a Becker knows her work is never truly done.

“Every year we’ve taken the program in the right direction, when you look at what we’ve been able to accomplish,” Pingeton says. “But under no circumstances are we satisfied.

Very driven, very hungry. “We want more.”

Photos: Travis Smith | ContentAllStars.com

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