Darrell Corwin worked his way up the ladder at Kansas City: he started as an assistant professor in the Health and Physical Education Department in 1966, then became JV coach in 1969, then took over the varsity squad in 1973. By the time he left the sideline in 1980 he had won the most games in school history (118) and led the Roos to their 1st postseason tourney (in 1977). HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to chat with Coach Corwin about making the 1977 NAIA national tourney and being the winningest coach in school history. Today marks the 8th anniversary of his enshrinement into the UMKC Athletics Hall of Fame on January 23, 2015, so we take this time to honor his life/legacy.
How did you 1st get into coaching? At 1st I thought that I was going to become a football coach. I had a job lined up as a high school assistant but I got my Masters’ degree and there was an opening as a junior high school basketball coach. I later won an award there as assistant coach of the year and the head of the Physical Education department at UMKC offered me a job. I became an assistant to head coach Bill Ross and head of the JV team while also coaching the baseball team.
You became the varsity coach at Kansas City in 1973: why did you take the job? I was going to take a job at Longview JC. I told our athletic director that I was going to leave but he told me to give him 2 weeks: he decided to make me an offer so I stuck around.
You were known for having a fast-break offense and pressing defense: why did you choose to play that way, and what made it so effective? Our very 1st game was against a team that pressed us…and they beat our butts! From that point on we decided to always run: I was very much into conditioning and we were in very good shape. We were able to beat a lot of teams in the 4th quarter when our opponents would run out of gas. We pressed all the time, even if we were leading late in the game, but that was the only thing that we knew how to do.
In 1977 you led the team to the NAIA national tourney (the only postseason trip in school history): how close did you come to beating Grand Valley State? We were up on them until about 8 minutes left. Back then there was no 3-PT line or shot clock: I decided to keep running but our shots did not go in. Grand Valley ended up in the Final 4, which is where we thought we could reach. They had an All-American named Paul Peterman who got hot.
In 1980 you received the UMKC Chancellor’s Special Citation for athletic achievement: what did it mean to you to receive such an outstanding honor? There were not too many of those given out so it meant a lot. I was retiring and I appreciated it a lot.
You remain the winningest coach in school history: do you think that anyone will ever break your record? Oh yes, it will be broken someday. The AD and I always told each other that you had to dominate D-2 before going into D-1. I still wonder what the program could have done at the D-2 level…but the administration wanted to get into D-1 in a hurry.
After retiring you worked with the Special Olympics: how fulfilling was that part of your life? It was great. I worked 18 years for the county’s special recreation administrator. We started with 800 kids and soon ended up with 2400 kids. It was very fulfilling and a lot of fun.
When people look back on your career, how do you want to be remembered the most? That is hard to answer but I hope they look at me as a guy who could win. When we went on the road as an Independent it was very difficult because the other schools had their own Frank and Jesse James officiating crews! I really enjoyed the players: it was tough to not see them any more after I retired.