Stan Heath

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Stan Heath bigraphy, stories - American college basketball coach

Stan Heath : biography

December 17, 1964 –

Stanley Heath, III (born December 17, 1964) is the head men’s basketball coach at the University of South Florida (located in Tampa, Florida). Heath is the former head basketball coach of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas and Kent State University, whom he led to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Basketball Tournament in 2002.

Coaching career

Assistant & Division II Coaching

Stan Heath began his collegiate career at Hillsdale College in 1989 as an assistant. After one season, he moved to Albion College where he was an assistant and the junior varsity head coach for two years. He worked at Wayne State University in Detroit the following three years, including serving as associate head coach in 1994 when WSU set a school record for victories (25–5), helping the Tartars win two Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference titles with a trip to the NCAA Division II Final Four in 1993.

After two seasons as an assistant at Bowling Green State University, he joined Tom Izzo at Michigan State University where he was an assistant for five years. He helped the Spartans advance to the Final Four three straight years (1999, 2000, 2001), win the 2000 national title, make another appearance in the Sweet 16 and go a combined 132–37. The Spartans posted records of 17–12 in 1997, 22–8 in 1998, 33–5 in 1999, 32–7 in 2000 and 28–5 in 2001. In addition to the three trips to the Final Four, MSU also reached the Sweet 16 in 1998 and the second round of the NIT in 1997.

On March 19, 2001, Sports Illustrated featured "five college coaches waiting in the wings." Heath was on that list, along with assistant Leonard Perry of Iowa State, Florida assistant John Pelphrey, head coach Jeff Ruland of Iona and Hofstra head coach Jay Wright. A month after that, he was named the head coach at Kent State.

Kent State

Heath got his first collegiate head coach job at Kent State in 2002. Under his guidance, the Golden Flashes finished with a 30–6 record that year and won the Mid-American Conference regular-season and tournament titles. They then came within a victory of reaching the Final Four before falling to Indiana at the South Regional finals of the NCAA Tournament.

Along the way, Kent set school and MAC records for wins (30), breaking the record of 29 set by Ball State in 1989; became the first MAC team to reach the Elite Eight since Ohio University in 1964; recorded a league-record 21-game winning streak, including a 17–1 mark in conference play; beat three ranked teams in the NCAA Tournament, including No. 20 Oklahoma State, 69–61, No. 8 University of Alabama, 71–58, and No. 9 University of Pittsburgh, 78–73 in overtime; went 12–0 at home with an average attendance of 4,928, Kent’s best since 1970; led the MAC in scoring defense (64.0 ppg), scoring margin (+11.9 ppg), field goal percentage defense (.418), rebounding margin (+5.0 rpg) and assist-to-turnover ratio (1.24) while also ranking second in three-point field goal percentage defense (.326) and turnover margin (+2.78); and suffered its five regular season losses by a total of 15 points.

Individually, Heath’s 30 wins ties for the third-most by a first-year head coach in NCAA Division I history with John Warren of Oregon (1945). Only Bill Guthridge of North Carolina (34 in 1998) and Bill Hodges of Indiana State (33 in 1979) won more. The Detroit native was also voted the MAC Coach of the Year and named the national Rookie Coach of the Year by both CBSSportsline.com and CollegeInsider.com.

Arkansas

After his successful first season at Kent State, Heath then moved on to the head coaching position at the University of Arkansas. He was hired on March 28, 2002 to replace Nolan Richardson who had been fired that year after claiming he was being mistreated because he was African American and challenging athletic director Frank Broyles to buy out his contract.

The 2003 season (2002–2003), Heath’s first as Razorback head coach, was a difficult one. With key players having left the team, as well as the normal adjustments to a new system, the team struggled to a 9–19 record.