New men’s coach ‘a good fit’ at Southwestern

Ottumwa Courier photo Getting started: Ottumwa coach Mike Holmes is already busy contacting potential players as he assumes the Southwestern menÕs basketball coaching position.

E-mail this story

Print this story

Share

After 19 years at several high school stops, Mike Holmes is ready to be a college basketball coach. The new Southwestern men’s coach said today he’s excited about making the transition to the collegiate game. “I think in my head I felt like this was something I could do. I wanted to teach at the college level,” Holmes said. “I chose a different path, though. One way to do it is to get a good grad assistant job in a good system and get college experience. I wanted to be a head coach. I started in Class A and moved up. I hoped my coaching merits would get me where I wanted to be.” And now, that is Creston. Holmes, Ottumwa High School head coach the past six seasons, succeeds Jerry Drymon, who resigned to take the head coaching position at Clarke College in Dubuque. Southwestern went 17-13 last season and had back-to-back winning season for the first time in eight seasons. SWCC ties There are ties to Southwestern’s successful past. When Bill Taylor guided the Spartans to the national tournament in 1999, his assistant was Chad Whittmer, who played under Holmes in high school and later served as an assistant with him at Des Moines Roosevelt. “Mike brought his Roosevelt teams over to our team camp and we had a lot of good conversations,” said Taylor, SWCC director of student services and a member of the coaching search committee. Taylor said Holmes stood out among the 50 candidates. “It’s just a good fit,” Taylor said. “He relishes the underdog role. We may not have all the things DMACC and Kirkwood have, so we have to outwork them. Mike runs a very disciplined system, and believes in fundamental basketball. How to screen, how to read screens, the intricacies of the game, maybe things that get lost a little bit in today’s game. He’s very organized and a hard worker.” Holmes faced much the same challenge at Ottumwa, which had just joined the Central Iowa Metro League when he took over. The Simpson College graduate and 1985 graduate of West Des Moines Valley — where he was a teammate of NBA player Matt Bullard — guided Ottumwa to a fourth-place finish in the 2004 state tournament. Ottumwa had not finished that high at state for 33 seasons. “Ottumwa was getting about four wins a year,” Holmes said. “But from my time at Roosevelt I realized that Ottumwa, much like Creston, was a hard-working blue-collar town. There were kids there that could do what I wanted to do — be patient and play hard-nosed defense.” Patient style Stressing ball-control offense and a tough man-to-man defense with helping rotations, Holmes’ Ottumwa teams won 68 games in six years in the tough CIML schedule. His career record is 183-202, according to the Iowa High School Athletic Association. Holmes’ coaching stops include Allison-Bristow, Spirit Lake, Waverly-Shell Rock, Des Moines Roosevelt, Indianapolis Ritter and Ottumwa, where he has also been dean of students. At Southwestern, Holmes will have a teaching contract for $33,550 for the physical education position held by Drymon, and a $5,000 head coaching contract. He is working to find an assistant coach. “That’s up to Mike,” Taylor said. “It’s a matter of pairing them up with jobs.” Holmes and wife Leeanna were married last summer. She is an elementary teacher in Ottumwa. Current players Holmes has met with current players on the Southwestern team. Taylor said several of the freshman have indicated an interest in staying. “I empathize with those guys, because the guy who recruited me (at Simpson) took a different job,” Holmes said. “I met with all the guys and tried to give them a clear idea of what to expect, what I want to do. I wanted to be fair to those guys, and give them an opportunity to try something else if that’s what they want to do. We’ll honor the commitment to those guys who cam over and want to stay.” Holmes is encouraged about the progress Drymon was able to make in recent years, and he wants to build on that with a disciplined style. “People have laughed that now I have to play with a shot clock,” Holmes said. “I just like to protect the ball and be a little more patient than your typical junior college team. The defensive style is a little like Dick Bennett’s — protect the basket. You have to have kids smart enough to do it, rotate and handle every screen correctly. We’re looking for kids who understand the game and want to work hard. “The type of kids I really enjoy coaching are kids who try to do more with less,” Holmes said in a press conference Tuesday at Ottumwa High School. “That’s the culture at Ottumwa. Probably the greatest compliment that I can pay to Ottumwa is ... that Southwestern reminds me of a college like Ottumwa. They have that mentality.” Extra time And as a college basketball coach, now he’ll have more time to spend on the court with his team. “That’s the nice thing about college,” Holmes said. “September workouts with players, and official practice on October first. That’s a lot better than the high school association giving me 11 practices before the first game!” And one of those games will be against Indian Hills — at Ottumwa in mid-December. SWCC is one of eight National Junior College Athletic Association Division II basketball teams in Iowa. Indian Hills is an NJCAA Division I athletic school. MIKE HOLMES Education