Korn's new deal with SEMO hoops makes a lot of people feel better

There are several people that feel positively about Southeast Missouri State extending Redhawk men’s basketball coach Brad Korn through the 2026-27 season with a new contract on Wednesday.

Redhawk Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics Brady Barke is happy to keep Korn in the fold – as much as the contract does that – for another four years.

"Brad has done a great job rebuilding our men's basketball program and creating a positive culture," Barke said in a release. "He has restored interest and excitement in our program again and I'm confident the program will continue to grow under his leadership."

Obviously, Korn and his coaching staff are thrilled to have the extra level of security in a profession that generally offers very little of that.

“Everybody knows that it is a win or get-out business,” Korn said. “I’m fortunate that we won, and I get this extension, but the main thing is I feel good that the people (Barke and University President Dr. Carlos Vargas) and the community, as a whole, recognize the work and are appreciative of the work, and they want you to continue to do that work.”

That is all well and good, but who really has a spring in their step this morning is Korn’s family. His wife of 15 years (next month), Kristin, and daughters, Brielyn (12) and Ashtyn (9) are ecstatic with the extra stability given how their journeys as part of a coaching family have gone, thus far.

On the move

The Korn family has had a typical path of most coaching families.

There was an early firing (at Southern Illinois in 2012), a one-year stay at Kansas State, a three-year stay at Missouri State, and another four years in Manhattan with the Wildcats, before moving to Cape Girardeau a week into a global pandemic in March of 2020.

In all, the Korn’s have lived in seven homes in four locales since 2008.

“After the first time of moving,” Kristin said, “you just sort of get used to it.”

Kristin has arranged (Brad has no involvement whatsoever in the process) so many moves that she has established a relationship with the same moving company in Springfield for the last three moves.

“He knows all of our stuff,” Kristin said.

Kristin has a checklist of what the moving process involves and handles every detail with precise execution.

“You just keep decluttering,” Kristin said. “The people who have lived in the same house for 20 years? Yeah, we don’t have that stuff.

“We don’t have as much ‘stuff’ as everyone else does.”

Handling the emotions

Kristin said that she and Brad have acclimated to the moving process, but you didn’t want to ask Brielyn or Ashtyn their thoughts on the topic in the spring of 2020.

When Brad and Kristin told the kids that Daddy had achieved his career goal of becoming a head coach, Brielyn and Ashtyn couldn’t have cared less.

“This move here was the hardest for (the kids),” Kristin said. “It was extremely, extremely hard. At that age, all they knew was they were leaving their best friends.

“And they blamed that on Brad. We were in a position where we had been praying for this opportunity, and we get it, and they were so mad.”

Time heals all things

Fast-forward to today and Brielyn and Ashtyn are in a much happier state of mind.

The kids have found great friends at St. Paul’s Lutheran School in Jackson, and Kristin has actually let her social guard down enough to assimilate into the community.

“You usually don’t know how long you are going to stay,” Kristin said. “You are hesitant to jump in and make friends and be super social because it is like ‘I might not be around here long.’

“I was timid about doing that. I knew that I had to do some of it, being the wife of the (SEMO men’s basketball coach), and we needed to get that support around the program. But it’s been three years, and we have totally adapted.”

Loving life

The reality of a coach’s contract is that it does provide financial stability. If Barke fires Korn today for tying his shoes incorrectly, he has the authority to do so, but he’ll have to write the Korn family a big check.

Likewise, if a professional opportunity presents itself to Korn, he has the ability to leave Cape Girardeau before the end of his deal (with his new employer writing Barke a big check). However, that isn’t a scenario that Kristin (Brielyn and Ashtyn certainly concur) envisions at this time.

“I told Brad the other day,” Kristin explained, “’Babe, I don’t know if I ever want to leave.’ We love our house. The kids love the people they have met. In three years, we have quickly rooted ourselves here.

“If we did leave, it would be the hardest thing that we have ever had to do.”

Brad and Kristin aren’t daydreaming about other coaching jobs, what really excites the couple is envisioning their kids having the comfort and stability in life that takes them through their graduation at Saxony Lutheran High School.

“What does the extension look like for us and where our kids are,” Kristin said. “In school, that is the most important thing is getting them through some milestones (in life).”

The logistics of the deal

Korn’s original contract that he signed in the spring of 2020 ran through the spring of 2025. This new deal reworks the final two years of his original contract, with a “slight” pay increase,” according to Korn, as well as adds two additional years onto his time in Cape Girardeau.

“It would be very easy just to let people ride out their contracts,” Korn said, “and die on the vine, and live in the ‘What have you done for me lately’ society. So, to see that you have the support from the people, who believed in you the first time and gave you this opportunity, it’s comforting in that regard.”

Just ask Brielyn and Ashtyn and they’ll tell you the same thing.