In 1960, a recent college grad was hired as a football coach at Excelsior Springs High School. Little did the community know that Vic Bonuchi would make quite an impact for the next several decades. And not simply because his teams won. Instead, he molded teens into young adults who could find success beyond high… Read more »
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Category: Coaches
Tom Botts
During his tenure as head coach, which ran from 1947 to 1972, Tom Botts led the University of Missouri Tigers track and field program to eight conference championships as well as a national indoor championship in 1965. He coached 48 conference champions, 23 All-Americans, five national champions, and two Olympians in his time at MU.… Read more »
Willie Bowie
He could easily rattle off the number of his coaching wins, the number of state tournament trips or even the big names on his teams. However, Willie Bowie prefers other statistics that speak to the kind of basketball coach he was at Paseo High School in Kansas City. “We had a ton of success, and… Read more »
Steve Boyce
He took on two monumental coaching tasks in high school swimming in Missouri – first in St. Louis, where the Parkway South program had had almost no success, and the next in Springfield, where a Hall of Famer left him the keys to the competitive Glendale program. Steve Boyce stared down both and, it seems,… Read more »
Bill Bradley
Bill Bradley graduated from Bismarck High School and embarked on a basketball career that has spanned over five decades. He attended Hannibal-LaGrange College from 1952-’54, where his teams compiled a 59-11 record and placed third in the National Junior College Tournament both years. He then moved on to Northeast Louisiana University and was a two-time… Read more »
Jesse Branch
When Jesse Branch arrived as head football coach of then-Southwest Missouri State University, there weren’t a lot of frills – just the way he liked it. No, there was no fancy weight room like the major college football casinos, nor a plush practice field. Heck, he didn’t even have a field goal kicker until the… Read more »
Bobby L. Brown
Brown, a native of Stoutland, MO, began his coaching career at Richland High School in 1956, where he coached for three years and compiled an 80-17 record. Brown then spent four years at Bolivar, highlighted by a 30-4 record and state Class M Championship in 1960. In 1966, Brown became the head basketball coach for… Read more »
Lance Brown
He could have flung aside his ball glove and walked away at age 18 when life tugged on the back of his jersey. After all, Lance Brown graduated from West Plains High School in 1960 with a bum pitching arm and without so much as a scout or college recruiter on his heels. In fact,… Read more »
George Bruto
In the late 1970s, George Bruto found himself at a crossroads. Yes, he loved football. In fact, he had played on an NAIA national championship team and, after serving in the military, saw high school football as his future. Yet, after a couple of seasons as a head coach at a rural school, began kicking… Read more »
John Bryant
Now in his 44th year at SBU, John Bryant serves as the men’s and women’s varsity tennis coach and an associate professor of mathematics. Bryant served as the director of athletics from 1989 to 1995. From 1967-1986, SBU tennis won 18 NAIA District 16 titles, played in 19 consecutive NAIA national tournaments and won the… Read more »
Jerry Buescher
Jerry Buescher began his journey to the 800-win mark during the 1960’s in Vandalia, Mo. Before that, he played basketball in college for northeast Missouri native Cotton Fitzsimmons at Moberly Area Community College. He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree from Lincoln University and earned a master’s at the University of Missouri. Buescher has won 12… Read more »
Bob Burchard
Usually, newspaper photos of basketball coaches show them barking at the refs, hollering at players or drawing up Xs and Os in a huddle. Yet arguably one of the most memorable photos of Bob Burchard is of the iconic Columbia College men’s basketball in a tucked-away locker room of Kansas City’s Municipal Auditorium on March… Read more »
Larry Burchett
He had played in three state championship football games, helping his team win two consecutive, and then headed off for college figuring he would come back to Midway High School as a coach. That is, even though several folks tried to steer him to different careers. Larry Burchett grins about it all now. “Everybody said,… Read more »
Bob Burchett
In the far corner of northeast Missouri from the 1980s and well into the early-2000s, out in the prairie fields, you could find Bob Burchett training bird dogs. Since 2013, he’s called southwest Missouri home, continuing a lifelong passion that has led to success in national competitions. Not that this is what he set out… Read more »
John Burgi
He had left his hometown of Carthage in 1975 to play college baseball and figured he would see where life would take him. And then the phone call came in. From his old high school coach. For John Burgi, returning home to coach? There were good reasons and understandable reservations, but mostly good. “I just… Read more »
Dr. Thomas H. Burnett
Under the direction of Dr. Tommy Burnett, the Missouri State University handball team has been crowned with National Collegiate Titles nine times during Burnett’s 20 year coaching tenure. Following his senior year at the University of Arkansas, the Pittsburgh Steelers drafted Burnett. He later joined the New York Jets and was a part of the… Read more »