Klanders wrote:
Congratulations to Imad Qahwash, Mike Pouncy, TK Smith, Carlos Dos Santos and Chris Williams!! 5 More Men's Basketball players to graduate from UCA! I am not silly enough to think that it is as big a deal as a candy cane colored football field, but it is so very important to me, these young men and their families!
I have been sitting on this letter for almost a year, but I am so proud of these young men and the others that have come before them in the past several years that i just have to share some thoughts. I know each of these guys and their backgrounds very well! I am Kevin Landers. For 7 years I was the Assistant Men’s Basketball coach at UCA. I and the rest of the staff was fired at the end of the 09-10 season. I could sit here and tout all of our accomplishments during those 7 years. We basically took over a program that had been very unsuccessful for many years and turned it into a 20 game winner and post season contender in our first year.
When the decision was made for UCA to make the move to D-1, my coaching colleagues across the country warned me that in Men’s basketball that move is a time bomb to your career. Like most coaches would be, we were confident that given the time and resources we would certainly be able to be successful even during the transition. When Dr. Teague came on board we were even more confident because we were encouraged by the fact that he seemed to understand that the transition from D2 to D1 is more of a challenge in Men’s Basketball than any other sport. The importance of the NCAA D1 tournament pretty much trumps everything when recruiting basketball players. I heard Dr. Teague say that in public forums and read it in print on several occasions. With a bit of research you will see that very few Men’s basketball programs in NCAA history have experienced as much success as we did during the D1 transition. Unfortunately, my colleagues were right. Fans and administration are just not able to see the big picture. While 10 to 14 wins a season during the transition are above the norm, to people who don’t understand, those are not great win totals for a basketball season.
Getting that off my chest was not the original purpose of my writing this letter. It was originally written in response to the above post of Old Bear (Rush Harding). Mr. Harding’s implication is that the Men’s basketball program had been less demanding of solid classroom performance than other sports on campus and that we did not have student athletes that placed an “appropriate value” on receiving a college degree. All you need to do is click a couple of times on the original link above and you will in fact see that our APR was above the national average, was equal to the football program, was far higher than the Women’s basketball program, and higher than the baseball program. In fact we had the 3rd highest APR in the Southland Conference! I would be happy to list the names of the more than 30 players who were a part of our program over our 7 years that now, or by the end of the year will have college degrees. There are more than that, but I have lost track with a few of them. Were we perfect? Absolutely not! As all programs do, we did have a some players that did not understand or appreciate the opportunity they were throwing away by not taking advantage of what a college degree affords in one’s life. I will also be happy to introduce you to many of the fine professors at UCA that will attest to my passion for my players academic careers. I know that passion was contagious. I am certain that the players will attest to that, or you can simply ask Old Bears son!
At the end of the 08-09 year we had 4 players graduate off our roster. Mitch Rueter, Andrew Silverman, King Cannon and Brian Marks all graduated on time. 3 had been with us for their entire college career and one was a junior college transfer. On numerous occasions Rand and I asked Steve East and Dr. Teague to do stories on these young men and their accomplishments. Each had incredible life stories that had nothing to do with basketball. For whatever reason we could never get any help with that, so in some ways I can see why people would be ignorant of some of these accomplishments. Sometimes you just have to do a bit of research. I am very proud that we operated a very respectful program for 7 years. There was never a negative headline in any paper about us and never a need for us to issue an apology for our behavior. I bled and sweated purple for 7 years and was fired by Dr. Teague with a 2 minute phone call. I would have loved to have won more games during the transition years. It would have been so fun to have had a couple of years to be able to compete with our opponents on an even court! I am very certain that the results would have been impressive. I can assure everyone that nobody worked harder than the Men’s basketball staff to be successful in every way!
I have many rings and trophies from my years of coaching college basketball. None of them make me feel nearly as good as I have felt the past few days as another group of my guys send thank you notes for helping them reach a great milestone!
I have worked in higher education for almost 20 years. Most as a coach, but also as an academic member and in administration. I will not allow anyone to question my academic passion and integrity, and will not allow anyone to belittle the many fine young men that I truly love and who have certainly placed an “appropriate value” on a college degree!
I am so thankful to all of the people who supported us over the years.
AMEN!
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