Longtime Missouri State University athletic director Bill Rowe will be honored as a Missouri Sports Legend, while three individuals will soon be inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame: the St. Louis Cardinals’ all-time saves leader, closer Jason Isringhausen; Kansas City Royals and nationally known groundskeeper George Toma; and Mansfield High School baseball coach Doug Jones.
They will highlight the Hall’s upcoming Baseball Luncheon presented by the Ozarks Coca-Cola/Dr Pepper Bottling Company, President and Executive Director Jerald Andrews announced Tuesday. The luncheon is at 11 a.m. May 18 at the University Plaza Convention Center.
The Hall of Fame also will recognize the fourth annual Diamond 9, a group of former high school, college and pro baseball players who made notable contributions to the sport. They will be named at a later date on our website.
An individual ticket is $40. A table of eight is $400 and includes associate sponsor recognition in the printed program. Numerous sponsorships also are available by calling 417-889-3100.
Bill Rowe, Missouri Sports Legend
Rowe, who spent 47 years working for Missouri State athletics before retiring in June 2009, will soon have a specially commissioned bust, cast in bronze, on the Legends Walkway – an honor bestowed on the Hall’s Missouri Sports Legends. It’s significant because only a handful of former Show-Me State sports greats line the walkway, including Stan Musial, Whitey Herzog, Norm Stewart, Len Dawson, George Brett and Ozzie Smith.
A Marionville native, Rowe is a 1961 graduate of then-Southwest Missouri State. He spent 19 years as the Bears’ baseball coach and then served as athletic director from 1982 until retiring in June 2009. He still serves as an ambassador for MSU in the community.
When Rowe became athletic director, Missouri State was transitioning to NCAA Division I status. During his tenure, the men’s and women’s intercollegiate teams made 46 trips to the NCAA championships along with numerous individual NCAA appearances. Under Rowe, the Bears Fund, established in conjunction with the move to Division I, also grew exponentially along with the annual auction benefitting intercollegiate athletics. The Bears Fund raised more than $34 million before 2008 to contribute to the financial stability of MSU athletics.
Likewise, among the many capital projects undertaken by Rowe and his staff were JQH Arena, which opened in November 2008 and seats 11,000. Additionally, he oversaw renovations or improvements to Plaster Sports Complex (the football stadium) such as the west-side upper deck; the school’s prior basketball home, Hammons Student Center; and collaborative efforts with community facilities such as Hammons Field, Cooper Tennis Complex, various golf courses and Killian Softball Stadium.
Rowe was Executive of the Year by the Mid-Continent Conference four times. After SMS joined the league in 1982-1983, its teams won 30 titles overall and 20 titles in its final four seasons before SMS joined the Missouri Valley Conference in 1990-1991. Rowe served on the Missouri Valley Conference transition committee to incorporate women’s athletics into the league in 1992. As a Valley member, Missouri State finished in the top five in all but one season in the 10-team Valley’s all-sports competition, winning the title three times (2000, 2002, 2003).
Rowe also served on various national committees and assisted with NCAA events on numerous occasions. MSU hosted D-I and D-II regional and national events in multiple sports during his tenure. He also served as chair of the NCAA Division II All-America and Coach of the Year committees and spent five years on the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) Executive Committee. He served on the NCAA Division I FBS Committee and Division I Baseball Committee. He has served two terms as chair of the NCAA Baseball Rules Committee and was an NCAA representative at more than 20 baseball regionals and super regionals.
Under his leadership, various teams reached the NCAA Tournament multiple times: softball (5), volleyball (7), men’s basketball (6) as part of 14 postseason appearances, baseball (7) including the 2003 College World Series, Lady Bears basketball (13) including two Final Fours. Football, men’s golf, women’s golf, men’s soccer and women’s soccer combined for seven NCAA Tournament appearances.
In 1988, Rowe was inducted into the ABCA Hall of Fame and named an MSU Outstanding Alumnus. He was inducted into the Missouri State Athletics Hall of Fame in 1994, the Springfield Area Sports Hall of Fame in 1998 and the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2004. Rowe holds a master’s degree from the University of Missouri and completed 30 hours beyond his master’s at Indiana University.
All this came after Rowe, while an undergraduate, served as a student trainer and later was an assistant coach in football and track. Rowe then spent 19 years (1963-1982) as the head baseball coach, athletics business manager and assistant athletics director. In baseball, Rowe was 394-230-1 (.631), including 126-62 (.670) in the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association. His teams won three MIAA titles, made seven NCAA Division II regional appearances, four NCAA D-II World Series appearances, one D-II runner-up finish and a D-II third-place finish.
Jason Isringhausen, MLB pitcher
Jason Isringhausen pitched 16 years in the big leagues, including seven seasons with the Cardinals (2002 to 2008). Of his 300 career saves, a team-record 217 came while pitching for St. Louis as “Izzy” was a key part of Cardinals playoff teams between 2002 to 2006. The club won a National League pennant (2004) and, two years later in 2006, won the World Series. Isringhausen led the NL in both saves (47) and games finished (66) in 2004, when the Cardinals earned 105 regular-season victories. In his St. Louis tenure, he struck out 373 batters in 408 innings, compiling a 17-20 record and 2.98 earned run average.
In his 16-year big-league career from 1995 to 2012, Isringhausen also pitched for the New York Mets in two stints (1995-1999, 2011), the Oakland Athletics (1999-2001), Tampa Bay Rays (2009) and the Los Angeles Angels (2012). He was primarily a starter in his first few seasons until moving full-time to the bullpen in 1999. The move enhanced his career, as Izzy became a two-time NL All-Star (2000, 2005). He also struck out 7.413 batters per nine innings, and that figure ranks 91st in the game’s history. In St. Louis, he struck out 8.2 batters per nine innings.
George Toma, Royals & Chiefs groundskeeper
George Toma, the longtime groundskeeper of both the Kansas City Royals and Kansas City Chiefs who has been in field preparation since 1942, will soon be inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame. Toma, 87, has enjoyed a seven-decade career in sports grounds keeping, beginning in 1942 with the Class A Eastern League’s Wilkes-Barre (Pa.) Barons, and he was still working in March 2016 at the Twins’ spring training in Florida. Toma was the head groundskeeper for the Royals from their inception in 1969 through 1999, and has been a consultant since 1997. His Kansas City roots date to 1957, when he was hired to be the Athletics’ groundskeeper at old Municipal Stadium. From there, he gained a national reputation as one of sports’ top field technicians, if not a troubleshooter of sorts. He is still around the game to this day. But his reach stretches beyond baseball.
Additionally, Toma was the head groundskeeper for the Chiefs from 1963 to 2001 and was chosen to prepare the first Super Bowl at the L.A. Coliseum and has continued on through the recent 50th Super Bowl in February 2016. He has prepared fields for 37 Pro Bowls, 26 in Hawaii; was a consultant for the National Football League; and, in 1985, began working on American Bowl games overseas. Between 1984 and 1994, and again in 1996, he worked Olympics venues for track, soccer and field hockey, plus all nine venues for World Cup soccer – running Soldier Field in Chicago, another in Pontiac, Michigan; and at Olympic Stadium in Atlanta. For the 1996 Atlanta Games, Toma led the installation of 13,500 yards of sod in 24 hours with 12 hours of sod bed preparation.
Toma’s reach has expanded almost everywhere in America. For example: In 1992, he was named to the All-Madden team. An LLC Publications biography about Toma was titled, “The Nitty Gritty Dirt Man” in 2004. A year later, he was part of the field rehabilitation and preparation of Louisiana State’s Tiger Stadium after Hurricane Katrina led the New Orleans Saints to relocate games there. Toma has received numerous national awards, including induction into the Royals Hall of Fame in 2012.
Doug Jones, high school baseball coach
Mansfield High School baseball coach Doug Jones has been coaching high school baseball since 1980. He a state-record 713 wins and has sent roughly four dozen players on to play collegiate baseball. Jones, who reached career win No. 700 on April 21, 2015, has overseen six of Mansfield’s seven state Final Four appearances: 1990, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1996 and 2005. The Lions won it all in 1995 and 1996, and the 2006 team finished 28-6 with a fifth-place finish at state.
Arguably his best team was in 1990, which reached the state semifinals with a 30-0 record and saw seven go on to play in college. Jones began his career at Mansfield in 1980. He went to Fordland in 1982 and coached there for six years before returning to Mansfield for the 1989-1990 school year. Jones was inducted into the Missouri Baseball Coaches Association in 2003 and also has been inducted into the Springfield Softball Hall of Fame.
