Last Monday the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame announced the 8 members of its Class of 2022: Becky Hammon, DeLisha Milton-Jones, Penny Taylor, Doug Bruno, Paul Sanderford, Bob Schneider, Debbie Antonelli, and Alice “Cookie” Barron. Coach Bob Schneider got his start in coaching at the high school level, where he made the state finals an amazing 10 years in a row. He later became coach at West Texas State, where he won 33 straight games to start the 1987-88 season and was named national COY in 1997. He won more than 1000 games in his career and only had 2 losing seasons in almost a half-century on the sideline. HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to chat with the brand-new Hall of Famer about winning basketball games and enjoying retirement.
How did you 1st get into coaching? I did not intend to coach after graduating from college with a history/speech degree. I wanted to go into radio/TV but the station was closed at the time and my hometown had an opening for a coach. They said I would have to go back to college to get 6 more hours of physical education classes, and then they hired me…and 48 years later I was still coaching!
During 12 years as coach at Canyon High School you won 5 state titles and finished runner-up 5 other times: did it just reach a point where people expected to see you in the title game every single year? It kind of seemed that way! We made the state finals 10 years in a row and won 5 of them. It was a great run: I had some great players/assistants.
In 25 years as coach at West Texas State you won 9 conference titles and made 2 Elite 8s: how were you able to have so much success over such a long period of time? You have to recruit well when you are a college coach. In high school I coached a 6-player game, which had started back in the 1940s. It was a half-court game with 3 guards/3 forwards. In 1978 Texas switched to the 5-player game and I felt that it would be a good time to try it in college. I spent 3 years at Texas Woman’s College before the job at West Texas State came open in 1981. We had a lot of fans from the high school thanks to my time at Canyon, and when we started winning at West Texas we began to build a good booster club. It was a good thing for me to come home. They would raise money any way they could to get us some uniforms/basketballs: even by gathering cans from the side of the highway! There was a Title IX lawsuit going on when I arrived at West Texas: they gave me 4 scholarships for basketball and 4 more for track but the athletic director said that I could combine them if I could find some basketball players who also ran track. I got some local girls who had played for me in high school, and that helped start the program. We were in the MVC to start but later dropped to D-2. I had to “teach” for 6 hours but was not certified for lecture classes so I taught basketball, which took up my entire morning. I liked to hold practice from 12:30-2:30 and the men’s coach and I were at odds about that for a while. I remember coming in 1 day and finding that all 6 of our nets had been cut down: that is the way it was in the early days of women’s basketball.
You entered the 1988 D-2 title game with a 33-0 record before losing to Hampton Institute: where does that rank among the most devastating losses of your career? I still have not looked at the video! I was sick about it, but Hampton had a great team including a player who a lot of D-1 coaches wanted but could not get because she was not eligible for D-1: she just tore us up. We got in late the night before and did not play the way we were capable of, but I give Hampton a lot of credit. Right before the game someone came up to 1 of my players to let her know that she had been selected player of the year: I actually think that hurt her psychologically because it took her focus off of the game.
You were a 6-time conference COY and 1997 WBCA D-2 national COY: what did it mean to you to receive such outstanding honors? It means an awful lot to be selected by your peers. That ranks right up there for me with being selected to the Hall of Fame…but I guess it has to take a bit of a back seat. I have been really blessed and we worked really hard at it. I loved teaching/coaching so it did not really seem like a job to me. I was raised to go to work and always told my players that it was the highlight of my life. Those 48 years went pretty fast.
You only had 2 losing seasons in 43 years as a coach, finished with a career record of 1045-293, and remain #11 in D-2 history with 634 wins (including 19 seasons of 20+ wins): what is the key to winning basketball games? You have to work at it. In Texas the basketball coaches had to coach football too: when I was at Canyon I took turns coaching the football team with the men’s basketball coach. I would coach the girls until 12, then the football team worked out until 5:30, then I would bring the girls back to coach them for another hour or so. I would keep the gym open on Tuesdays/Thursdays during the evening for anyone who wanted to come by and participate. After we won our 1st state title I did not know what to expect. I also coached junior high school at the time because we had a superintendent who really wanted to win! We had an awful lot of girls who wanted to participate and we did not cut anyone: if someone did not get to play during the week then I would bring them back to play on Saturday so they felt like they were an important part of the team. In college I had hard-working players who were dedicated to getting better during the summer.
Your last game was in 2006: what have you been up to since retiring? We were in the regional tourney in 2006 as was my son Brandon (who was coaching at Emporia State), and my other son Brett was my grad assistant at the time. We both won our 1st games and met in the 2nd round of the tourney. It was a back-and forth-game but Brandon beat the old man by 6 PTS to make the Elite 8: I was really proud of him. My daughter played for me at West Texas, which also meant a lot to me. Since retiring I have just done whatever my wife tells me to do! She always sat on the bench with me as our stat keeper and never missed a trick. If we fell behind in the game she would yell out, “Bob: do something!” It was a blessing to have her there with me. She also filled out grade reports on every player, which meant a lot to them.
Your sons Brett/Brandon both went into coaching: how much of an impact did you have on their own career choices? We did not push our kids into coaching: they made up their own minds during high school. Now I spend a lot of time watching my 2 sons coach at their respective schools and watching my grandkids play their own sports. Our daughter in Amarillo teaches service dogs to work with veterans: I am really proud of both her and her nonprofit organization.
You are already a member of the Texas Girls Coaches Hall of Fame, the Texas High School Basketball Hall of Fame, and the 2011 West Texas A&M Hall of Champions, but earlier this week you were elected to the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame: where does that rank among the highlights of your career? It has to be at the top. The local/state Halls of Fame are also right up there…but to be in a national Hall of Fame is really special.
When people look back on your career, how do you want to be remembered the most? That I was a good coach who worked hard at it. If I did not know about something I would seek out another coach to pick their brain. I was dedicated/fair to my players and never berated my players or called them names: if I was disappointed I would just yell out an occasional “Gosh-o-mighty!” We worked hard at conditioning/discipline so that they could learn what we were doing. I did not put in a set of 40-50 plays: just what we needed to be successful. I like to play a pressure defense and run a fast break on offense. A lot of opposing coaches said that my girls played hard, which was good.