Creve Coeur High School Coach Weighs In On Mizzou Coaching Search

By now, you've seen the news that Matt Painter, believed to be the main target of the University of Missouri's search for a new men's basketball coach, is staying at his alma mater, where he also served as an assistant, Purdue.

“It is a different world now,” said Steve Stipanovich, speaking about the constant change of college head coaches, as Mizzou searches for Mike Anderson's replacement.

Stipanovich was on two state championship teams at . Over four years from 1979 through 1983 he helped lead the University of Missouri to over 100 wins and then scored 5,321 points in the NBA for the Indiana Pacers.  He is now the head girls basketball coach at .

When Stipanovich played college ball, his coach, Norm Stewart, was not going anywhere far from Boone County. Stewart was in his tenth year at Missouri during Stipanovich’s freshman season and coached the Tigers for a total of 32 years. Digger Phelps was at Notre Dame at the time and would spend another 20 years in South Bend, Ted Owens was at Kansas for 20 years, Joe Cirpriano coached the Cornhuskers from 1964 to 1980 and Dean Smith was only halfway through his 38-year run as head coach at North Carolina.

“The majority of the reasons a player picks a college is the coach. Period,” said Stipanovich. “The difference is now coaches can and will leave anytime they want.  Players can’t do that without suffering some penalty.”

“The coach is very involved in every aspect of a player’s life. But, at the end of the day, even if a coach suddenly leaves, basketball is still just basketball and the players have to adjust to a new coach,” said Stipanovich.

One way some programs, like Purdue, have bridged the gap from longtime coaches like Gene Keady to the next generation, like Painter, is by searching from within the school's roots.

Stewart, for instance, coached at Northern Iowa before coming back to Columbia. Mike Anderson is returning "home" to Arkansas, a place where he served as an assistant for 17 years.

Since Norm Stewart's retirement, MU has not hired a head basketball coach who might feel a gravitational pull that would naturally draw them back to Columbia and keep them there. Several MU grads are now head coaches including Larry Drew, now Head Coach of the NBA's Atlanta Hawks, and Kim Anderson, a longtime Stewart assistant and now a coach at Central Missouri State.

Kelly Thames is also coaching at the high school level, at , and a former Pattonville Pirate-turned-Mizzou Tiger, Corey Tate, has been the head coach at Mineral Area Community College since 2004. Thames could not be reached for comment.

When asked if there were any possible candidates with a background of Mizzou basketball, Stipanovich mentioned Drew and Anderson, and a teammate.

“The other guy is my former teammate Jon Sundvold.  He would be a guy they should look at. He might not be interested, but they should consider him. Hey, maybe I should start a rumor that he is a top choice for the job,” said Stipanovich. 

Sundvold who now does color commentary on Missouri broadcasts, has a financial management company after playing eight seasons for three NBA teams and was part of the selection committee the university used before hiring Mike Anderson.

Now, as the latest search moves onto "Plan B", the school presumably turns toward other candidates who might not automatically have Missouri ties pulling them home.

"You would think that a program like Missouri’s and especially the Norm Stewart era would have produced more lifetime coaches but it has not." Stipanovich said via email.