Billy Key arrived at Missouri Science & Technology — then Missouri-Rolla — in 1964 to become the head men’s basketball coach and four years later, was named to replace the legendary Gale Bullman as athletics director. He retired from coaching following the 1986-87 season with the most coaching wins in school history but remained as… Read more »
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Category: Coaches
Boyd King
Boyd King, who attended the Hannibal Public Schools, won 11 letters in football, basketball, and baseball at Truman State University and later returned as a successful basketball coach. He was captain of the 1936 baseball team. After graduation, he coached at Pittsfield, Illinois, and Hannibal. During World War II, he served as an ensign in… Read more »
Bob Kinloch
In the mid-1960s, as he began his teaching and coaching career, Bob Kinloch floated an idea to then-Springfield Public Schools athletic director Orville Pottenger. Having wrestled in U.S. Army, Kinloch asked if the school district could launch a wrestling program. “He said, ‘We’re not starting wrestling,’” Kinloch recalled, adding that he then ramped up his… Read more »
George Kissell
Every person who has been associated with the St. Louis Cardinals organization during the past 63 years has had contact with George Kissell. One of the most respected people in the game of baseball at any level, Kissell is often referred to as “baseball’s grandfather” by St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa. Kissell’s 63… Read more »
Trish Kissiar-Knight
A native of Licking, Mo, Knight coached the West Plains High School Zizzer volleyball teams to four consecutive Class 4A state championships. With Trish at the helm of the MSU-West Plains Grizzlies Volleyball team, they have accumulated a record of 607-141-3 over 14 years of play. Trish reached a career milestone with her 600th career… Read more »
Jim Klousia
Talk about destiny. Because that may be the only way to describe Jim Klousia and the sport of tennis. You see, initially, he turned down a college scholarship to play at Southwest Baptist University before having a change of heart. And then, after graduating and heading out into the real world, the sport just kind… Read more »
Don Knapp
We no longer live in a time where people stay in the same job for 30-plus years. We’re more transient now, able to move from place-to-place and job-to-job without much of a second thought. Spend 37 years working in one place? Who would do that? Don Knapp, that’s who. The former Rolla High School cross… Read more »
Celeste Knierim
She lived the dream that made an impact. Of coaching community college women’s athletes. Of recruiting St. Louis-area teens for basketball, field hockey, volleyball and softball. Of setting them up for success on the field, and in life. Then again, Celeste Knierim certainly wasn’t afraid to roll up her sleeves. In fact, when offered the… Read more »
Barry Koeneke
It’s often said that coaches are the sum of each of their most influential coaches. For longtime Hallsville High School baseball coach Barry Koeneke, that would be Warren Turner, Hi Simmons and Gene McArtor. In order, they are former Joplin Memorial High School and Missouri Southern State University’s coach (852 wins), the University of Missouri… Read more »
Joe Koestner
What began as a simple announcement over the loud speakers at St. Louis University High School in 1985, when the racquetball program needed a coach, became a success story that’s almost too hard to believe. Even Joe “Doc” Koestner, the coach himself, gets a kick out of retracing the roots of history. “It was the… Read more »
Susan (Bouldin) Kreklow
Years ago, Susan Bouldin would ride her bike 45 min utes from her family’s Webster County dairy farm into Marshfield to play volleyball, back at a time when the sport’s future was uncertain. And yet she kept churning, turning her passion into a coaching career, and eventually collided with her future husband, Wayne, a volleyball… Read more »
Wayne Kreklow
Years ago, Susan Bouldin would ride her bike 45 min utes from her family’s Webster County dairy farm into Marshfield to play volleyball, back at a time when the sport’s future was uncertain. And yet she kept churning, turning her passion into a coaching career, and eventually collided with her future husband, Wayne, a volleyball… Read more »
Tony La Russa
Few probably know this story about Tony La Russa. It’s when the past sees the future, says his thank-yous and, in the process, reminds everybody of why he was so successful. In essence, little details always mattered. In September 2012, almost a year after retiring as a big-league manager following 33 seasons in dugouts, La… Read more »
Geary Labruary
It’s often said that the wife of a high school football coach knows the coach the best. So when looking back at the career of the late Geary Labuary, his widow, Stephanie, has the stories – some that explain why so many folks in the central Missouri town of California still revere the coach to… Read more »
Dale Labruary
He used to pull up every morning at the Chrysler plant in St. Louis and take his lunch pail to work. This was in the early 1970s, not long after Dale Labuary had graduated high school. And he didn’t realize how unhappy he was until visiting his brother, a young high school coach running a… Read more »
Gayle Lampe
Ask renowned equestrian rider, judge and instructor Gayle Lampe on her advice to anyone interested in following in her footsteps and you can hear the passion for the sport in her voice. “Just love it. Go to the barn. Eat it. Breathe it. Sleep it,” Lampe said. “Don’t do anything else.” In essence, that’s how… Read more »