Southeast awards Ishee with head coach job

~ As acting head coach, Ishee had won the OVC regular-season and tournament championship.

When John Ishee moved to Cape Girardeau in June, he could never have envisioned what took place early Monday evening in a Show Me Center meeting room.

Back in June, Ishee was hired as an assistant coach for the Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team.

Approximately 10 months later, he is the program's new head coach.

"I would have never expected it," Ishee said. "But things do happen for a reason."

Ishee, the Redhawks' acting head coach since November, had the "acting" tag removed from his title Monday during a news conference.

Southeast athletic director Don Kaverman made the announcement in front of various media members, university administrators -- including president Dr. Ken Dobbins -- and boosters.

Ishee was given a three-year contract, which will run through April 30, 2010. Kaverman said his base salary will be $75,000 per year, with various incentives that Kaverman said were still being drawn up in the contract Monday night.

Area media outlets had been notified of the impending news conference only a few hours earlier.

"This is not the reason I came here [to Southeast]," Ishee said. "But I gladly accept the position and look forward to giving every ounce of energy in me and doing the best job possible."

It has certainly been a whirlwind season for Ishee and the Redhawks, who are headed to the NCAA tournament for the second straight year after having never qualified since moving up to Division I in 1991-92.

Ishee, 47, was named the Redhawks' acting head coach on Nov. 9, just two days before the season opener at Tulsa, after B.J. Smith -- who brought Ishee to Southeast as an assistant -- was placed on paid administrative leave.

Smith, Southeast's head coach the previous four years, resigned amid controversy in early December without ever coaching a game this season.

Throw in the fact Southeast was picked just fifth in the Ohio Valley Conference's preseason poll after losing four starters from last year's league championship team, and this had the makings of a challenging season all the way around.

Instead, the Redhawks (24-7) won their first outright OVC regular-season crown -- they shared their inaugural title last year -- repeated as tournament champions and set a school record for wins on the Division I level. Ishee was named OVC coach of the year.

Kaverman said the fact Ishee was rewarded for helping hold things together was actually something of an obvious decision, as recommended by the athletic director to Dobbins and the Southeast Board of Regents.

"He was put in an incredibly difficult situation. The whole team was," Kaverman said. "For things to work out the way they did, you have got to look to the person who was put in charge.

"How could you not offer the guy the job?"

Kaverman, who also praised assistant coaches Lisa Pace and Jenni Lingor, along with the players, said he realizes that Southeast fans -- who appeared to be firmly behind Ishee -- were getting impatient that this announcement had not been made earlier.

Kaverman insisted that was because of his recommendation to Dobbins not to make any kind of an announcement until after the OVC tournament, which concluded Saturday with Southeast beating Murray State 62-60 for the title.

According to Kaverman, Dobbins wanted to announce Ishee's hiring sooner.

"We had come to this conclusion a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't want to take away attention from the task at hand," Kaverman said. "I wanted the team to be able to focus on winning championships.

"In retrospect, I'd say it worked out pretty good."

Ishee also served as a volunteer assistant at Southeast during Smith's first season as head coach in 2002-03 before moving on to become an assistant at New Mexico State.

"Nobody would ever want to get a job at the expense of somebody else who has been a friend and a colleague like B.J. has been to me," Ishee said. "This is the last thing I would have expected to happen when I came here in June.

"But like I said, things happen for a reason."

Of course, Ishee realizes he might not be in this position had his players and assistant coaches not banded together to put together a season that came as a surprise to just about everybody outside the program.

"If those 11 players and my two assistant coaches had not been supportive of me, and we had not had the kind of season we had, I probably wouldn't be in this position," Ishee said.

Previous success

Ishee had been a head coach previously, at Division II New Mexico Highlands University and NAIA Life University in Georgia.

In fact, his tenure at Life University indirectly led him to Southeast the first time.

After leading the Eagles to a 22-10 record and No. 18 national ranking in 2001-02, the school dropped intercollegiate athletics late that summer. Scrambling for a job, he wound up as a volunteer assistant at Southeast.

Ishee went on to be the recruiting coordinator at New Mexico State for two seasons before becoming the head coach at New Mexico Highlands and then returning to Southeast.

Ishee, a Mississippi native, has been a recruiting coordinator at three Division I programs during a 19-year college coaching career: New Mexico State, Mississippi and Southern Mississippi.

A graduate of Southern Mississippi, Ishee helped lead that school to a pair of NCAA tournament appearances from 1991 through 1994, including a Sweet 16 showing.

"I am confident he will do a great job and will work hard to continue to win championships," Kaverman said.

Ishee has no doubt about that -- and he said he could envision himself staying at Southeast for quite a while, although he realizes a lot of that depends on the type of program he is able to build.

"I went to Southern Mississippi. Now I'm at Southeast Missouri. They both kind of rhyme," he said, smiling. "I thank the university administration, Dr. Dobbins and Mr. Kaverman for this opportunity.

"I could definitely see myself being here for a while."

As for the future at Southeast of seventh-year assistant Pace and first-year assistant Lingor, Kaverman and Ishee said that will be addressed following the Redhawks' NCAA tournament appearance.

"After we get through the NCAA tournament, John and I will discuss how he wants to put the staff together," Kaverman said.