https://www.thecabin.net/sports/20180926/pennell-sees-better-horizon-for-ucaNice article on Coach Pennell..........
Andy Robertson
Sep 26, 2018 at 4:20 PM
Sep 26, 2018 at 4:20 PM
Nearly a month shy from starting his first game of the 2018-19 season, University of Central Arkansas men’s basketball coach Russ Pennell spoke Wednesday at Kiwanis about his history of rebuilding programs and his love for coaching.
“I love what I do,” he said. “It amazes me that I get paid to coach a game. I never take that for granted. I wake up every morning thinking this is the coolest thing on earth. We are always under scrutiny. Poor coach Morris up at Arkansas. He would even say to you it is still worth it. Because when you pour yourself into your team, its just you.”
After finishing his playing career at UCA in 1984, Pennell would soon join the coaching ranks with a coach he had some history with.
“I started out my coaching career at Oklahoma State under Eddie Sutton,” he said. “I played under coach Sutton for one year at Arkansas before coming to UCA. I got a chance to set up as a player and then a coach under coach Sutton and it was incredible.”
After coming off a scandal that the NCAAA nearly gave Kentucky the “death penalty,” Sutton began coaching at Oklahoma State University, where Pennell said the team racked up 52 wins, two Sweet 16s, a Big 8 Championship and a preseason NIT Tournament win.
“I thought coaching was easy,” he said. “I don’t think coach [Rob] Evans and I even won 52 games when we went to Ole Miss. My career has been dotted with reviling programs. Even when we joined coach Sutton, this was 1990, they had not had an NCAA Tournament appearance since 1965. Then, I went to Ole Miss in 1992. Ole Miss hadn’t had a 20-win season since 1938.”
From Ole Miss, Pennell and Evans then went to Arizona State and began a stint there.
“I went to Arizona State and they were coming off a point shaving scandal,” he said. “Anytime I would go home to recruit, we would always be asked about that scandal and we had to explain that about the previous regime. In four years, we made the NCAA Tournament.”
Pennell then joined the University of Arizona under Hall of Fame coach Lute Olson.
Under difficult circumstances, Pennell eventually became interim head coach.
“Unfortunately, he was only there for about five or six months and had to retire,” he said. “I became the interim head coach in a very tumultuous year as far as keeping everything together. We were blessed with a lot of good kids and they really worked hard, so we got a chance to get to the Sweet 16 that year. I got to dip my toes into being a head coach.”
Pennell wasn’t stripped of the interim title and he began a stint at Grand Canyon University.
“I went to a school called Grand Canyon University,” he said. “They went from Division II to Division I and they hadn’t won very much. My last year there, we were ranked 22nd in DII and went to back-to-back NCAA Tournaments.”
Pennell said he wasn’t saying that to pat himself on the back, but because he has been in places where the schools he has been at has been rebuilt to get to where he has gone.
“I don’t tell you that to pat myself on the back, but there is a formula to get there and I’ve had great mentors,” he said. “That’s the way I feel with where we’re at at UCA.”
Pennell said when he got to UCA, the team’s GPA was 1.7.
He got rid of the entire team except one player in Ethan Lee because Lee was an eligible player, who is now working on his second master’s degree at UCA.
The team won two games in Pennell’s first season as head coach.
UCA won seven games his second year, eight his third and 18 last year, including wins against the University of California, a near-win over then ranked No. 18 UCLA, a win over Stephen F. Austin and an opening round Southland Conference win against Lamar.
Pennell thinks the best is yet to come for the Bears.
This will be the first in a two-part series, concluding Friday.