THE LATEST LINE: CENTRAL MAKES A WISE PICK

There were apparently quite a few highly qualified candidates to become Cape Girardeau Central High School's new head boys basketball coach.

But it's hard to imagine a better selection than Derek McCord, who Friday was named as the person to try and revitalize a program that has struggled in recent years.

When McCord took over at Scott City in 1991, the Rams were mired in a long period of futility, having compiled 10 losing records in the previous 12 seasons and going through what seemed like a new coach about every year.

Scott City was known throughout the area as a football school and the conventional wisdom was either that no coach would be able to turn around the basketball program or that no coach would be allowed to stay on board long enough to get things headed in the right direction.

But McCord changed all that in a big way. His first Scott City team went 15-11, which would be the Rams' worst record during his decade-long tenure.

All McCord wound up doing at a school where finishing close to .500 in boys hoops had been a major achievement was go 216-70, win four district titles and lead a five-year stretch that featured an average of more than 25 wins per season.

Now he's hoping to weave that same magic at Cape Central, which has a fairly rich overall basketball tradition but -- for whatever reasons -- has struggled in recent times. The Tigers have won as many as 15 games just once in the last four seasons, during which time they've compiled three losing records, including a combined 15-34 mark over the last two campaigns.

There are no guarantees that McCord will be able to lead the Tigers back to being a consistently strong team -- as opposed to just a one-year wonder every now and then -- but he appears to know what it takes to build a program from the ground up.

If he can do it at Scott City, you've got to believe he'll have a fighting chance to do it at Cape Central.

• Southeast Missouri State University's baseball team didn't win the Ohio Valley Conference regular-season championship this year, although the Indians finished a solid second behind runaway winner Eastern Illinois.

But you've got to think the Indians have as good a chance as any team of winning the OVC Tournament that begins Wednesday in Paducah, Ky.

Not only do the Indians have statistically by far the conference's top pitching staff -- and pitching is so vital in any tournament -- they also have the nation's earned-run average leader (Todd Pennington) ready to go for the all-important first-round game.

It should be an exciting event as six squads battle for the OVC's automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament.

The Indians will likely play their opening game at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday.

* It's been fun all season listening to veteran announcer Kevin Phillips doing the radio play-by-play broadcasts of Chaffee baseball.

Kevin, a local attorney by trade, is not a full-time broadcaster but he's as good as anybody around.

* Michael Stokes, SEMO's splendid point guard from the past two seasons, is almost certain to wind up playing professionally overseas. He's currently talking with teams from a few different leagues.

~Marty Mishow is a sports writer for the Southeast Missourian