As of Dec. 15, 2009, Slatham has won 1,005 games during his 44-year coaching career at McKendree, an NAIA Div. l school in Lebanon, ILL near St. Louis, MO. That's more than Bobby Knight, Dean Smith, Adolph Rupp and John Wooden. He is the all-time winningest coach in ALL of Men's College Basketball, including NCAA Div. l. He has only Tennessee Women's Coach Pat Summit to beat. It is amazing that Coach Slatham has stayed at one place for 44 years. The only other college coaches I know of who have that long of a tenure are football coaches: Bobby Bowdon and Joe Paterno.
Slatham reached the 1,000 win mark when his Bearcats defeated East-West University 79-48 in the McKendree classic on Nov. 13. His most recent win came on Dec. 15 of this year when the Bearcats defeated Concordia (MO) 84-38. Currently, the Bearcats are 10-5 on the season. During the 2008-09 campaign, Slatham guided the Bearcats to a 14-0 America Midwest Conference record en route to winning the regular season championship and a berth into the NAIA Div. l National Tournament in which McKendree reached the "elite 8" for the third time in school history. That is just one of the many, many accomplishments of Slatham's tenure at McKendree. Slatham has led the Bearcats to post season play in 38 out of his 43 years of coaching at McKendree. The 2009-10 season will mark Slatham's 44th year at the school.
McKendree has qualified for the NAIA National Tournament 13 times in its history, and Slatham has been the coach all 13 of those years. He led the Bearcats to 5 straight NAIA "Big Dance" appearances from 1999-2004. Since he began his tenure at McKendree in 1966, Slatham's teams have averaged 23 wins a season and reached the 20 win mark 31 times.
I wonder how many offers this man has gotten from Mid Major NCAA Div. l programs such as Southern Illinois, Bradley, St. Louis or other schools. McKendree is fortunate to have had Coach Slatham for as long they have. Here are some of the many accomplishments Slatham has achieved while at McKendree:
- Selected as the 2001-02 NAIA Men’s Basketball Coach of the Year.
- AMC Coach of the Year award eight different times, including each of the last two years.
- Six-time recipient of the NAIA District 20 Coach of the Year.
- Named the NAIA-Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Men’s Basketball Coach of the Year 12 times.
- Led McKendree to an 83-72 victory over Maryville University, marking his 880th career win, passing legendary University of North Carolina head coach Dean Smith for the all-time wins record among college basketball coaches.
- Led McKendree to a 34-4 record and 10-0 record in conference play back in 2002-03.
- 1998 induction into the NAIA Hall of Fame. He is also a 1987 inductee into the IBCA-NAIA Hall of Fame.
- 70-48 win in St. Louis against Concordia. That marked career game No. 1,355 on the bench for Statham, allowing him to pass Jim Phelan for the college basketball record for games coached. Back on Nov. 25, 2005, Statham reached the 900-win mark as the Bearcats defeated Freed-Hardeman University, 73-69.
- Nov. 15, 2002---Led McKendree to an 88-87 win over Mountain St. University, becoming the NAIA’s all-time leader in career victories with career win No. 817.
- Statham has coached 67 different players that have received post-season accolades. Nine of those players have earned NAIA All-America honors.
One amazing thing in spite of all of these accomplishments, Slatham has never won a national championship. Let's hope that before he retires, whenever that may be, he gets to lead the McKendree Bearcats to a national title, capping off a brilliant coaching career spanning almost half a century. Information in this article was obtained from the McKendree University Web Site www.mckendree.edu.
That's cool KG!
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