Episode 6 - Mike Worrell

-Played baseball in college at Rio Grande for first two years of college. Got to know basketball coach and had passion to coach -Transferred to Urbana and helped out as a student assistant -Kept on full-time after he finished at Urbana and stayed around for two more seasons -Became a GA for two seasons at Ashland and coached under Keith Dambrot in second season -Worked camps and connected with Steve Moore (second in D3 all-time wins) giving him an opportunity to spend six seasons with him as an assistant at The College of Wooster -Could have been happy being an assistant coach there for 30 years but thought (main duties were coaching and recruiting) -Thought maybe it was time to get a head coaching job and move on -Interviewed at a few places and was offered the job at Illinois College -Took on many different duties including coaching multiple sports at Illinois College -Vastly different situation from College of Wooster to Illinois College -Went away from motion and started running more sets to get better shots -Recruiting improved and team qualified for conference tournament in third season (first time in school history) -Won Midwest Conference Tournament in 2002-03 and qualified for the NCAA Tournament by beating Grinnell at old Darby. -What was it like to play Grinnell? -Travel in the Midwest Conference and Friday/Saturday back to back games -Prepped with Saturday scouting report on previous Monday, then Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday for Friday night game -How it ended during the 2017-18 season -Only had $3,500 for assistant coach in his last season -In his 22 years, his assistants made around $60,000 combined -Had multiple coaches under him go on to lead their own programs -Took an early retirement buyout that the college was offering -Former assistant coach under him, Steve Thompson (College of Wooster grad), was an AD at Eureka and then took the Bethany AD job -In the summer of 2018, Steve asked Mike if he wanted to come work for him -Currently Associate Athletic Director and does “whatever needs to be done” -Will be an assistant for basketball this season, teaches classes and may help with tennis as well -“Any other duties assigned.” -Averaged 22 to 30 guys on the roster per year to help the college with enrollment and played JV schedule -“Once you get to a certain point, if you don’t make a move you’re almost bound to stay and hope it works out.” -Misses the coaching part -“You miss having a team.” -Misses being miserable -Still stays connected to former Illinois College and College of Wooster players -30 or 31 players or student coaches/managers met their spouse at Illinois College -Had the opportunity to coach Lamont Paris at Wooster who is now the head coach at Tennessee Chattanooga -Also coached Ryan Pedon at College of Wooster who is currently an assistant coach at Ohio State -The advice to his son on coaching at Ashland as a GA currently -What it was like coaching Jacob Tucker -Following him down to Houston at the Slam Dunk contest and the stories with him winning it -“If you want to do the college game, you have to do it when you are young.” -Enjoys talking with other coaches at Bethany because he has been through some things -“Have your resume ready.” -Enjoyed coaching in the competitive Midwest Conference