OLATHE, Kan. – Rocky Lamar, legendary MidAmerica Nazarene University men’s basketball coach, will retire following the 2021-22 season.
Lamar is the NAIA’s most successful active coach and has the eighth most wins among active male college basketball coaches at all levels – a roster led by Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Boeheim and Jim Calhoun.
“I will have more to say in the next few days,” Lamar said in a school statement announcing his impending retirement. “But for now, I just want to say that it has been one of the great joys of my life serving at MidAmerica Nazarene. For me, it is the greatest institution in the world. There is no best place to work. It never felt. like a job. And I loved my stay here. “
The Pioneers have won 788 games since Lamar took over the program in 1986, including a NAIA Division II national championship in 2007.
“I wouldn’t be the man I am today without Coach Lamar’s influence on my life,” said former Pioneers point guard Adam Hepker, who played for the national championship squad, in a KSHB 41 release. “Coach uses basketball. preparing young men for a life of relationship and service to others.
“In all of my basketball years, both playing and now as a coach, I have never seen a coach able to connect, empower and build trust among their players as a Coach. . I love Coach and I am forever indebted to him for the investment he made in my life and I know hundreds of alumni would say the same. “
Lamar also led MNU to runner-up in 2001 and five more NAIA Final Four appearances – in 2006, 2008, 2009, 2014 and 2016.
His resume also includes 13 Heart of America Athletic Conference titles and a total of 19 NAIA National Tournament appearances as well as National Christian College Athletic Association National Tournament finalists in 1997 and 1998.
Matt Keeley – who played for Lamar from 2000 to 2004, spent a season as a graduate assistant and then returned as a full-time assistant from 2009 to 2017 – described Lamar as “one of the most successful people. more generous, passionate and competitive than I have ever been. about.”
Now a men’s basketball coach at OUAZ – University of Ottawa in Surprise, Arizona – Keeley said he learned the intricacies of building a successful program from Lamar.
“Even today, over 15 years after graduating, I know for sure two things about Coach – he prays for me and my family and, if I really needed anything from him, he prays for me and my family. would drive all night to help, ”Keeley says. “The coach has been the bond that binds the relationships of MNU basketball players for the past 35 years. His name is on the floor and there are several banners on the rafters, but his real impact is in the relationships he has forged with us and helped us build with each other.
Lamar, who was inducted into the NAIA Hall of Fame in 2014, has coached 36 players who have received NAIA All-America honors and has been selected seven times as the Heart of America Sports Conference of the Year.
He was also the NAIA Coach of the Year in 2006-07 and twice won the Kansas Basketball Coaches Association Coach of the Year award (2006-07, 2008-09).
Lamar was born in Indiana and raised in Iowa, but he graduated in 1976 from MNU, where he met and married his wife, Jo.
Rocky and Jo have two children, Chaz and Sarah, and three grandchildren.
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