Inductees

He had grown up playing several sports in Poplar Bluff, where his dad owned a sporting goods store and doubled as a Big 8 Conference basketball referee.

However, becoming a coach was not exactly on Jim Bidewell’s radar, even in college.

“I was a junior at Arkansas State, engaged to my high school sweetheart, mopping floors at a local steakhouse not really knowing what I wanted to do,” Bidewell recalled.

Eventually, he earned a physical education teaching degree, parachuted into Portageville High School and later emerged as one of the most successful high school coaches in state history. That is why the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame proudly inducted Bidewell with the Class of 2021.

Bidewell led the Portageville High School boys basketball program for 28 seasons (November 1982 to  March 2010). His teams were 542-170 and reached seven Final Fours, with five teams winning it all in Class 2.

The state titles played out in 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 and 2009 – with the 1991 and 1993 teams each posting 31-0 seasons. His 1998 team placed fourth, and his 1999 team placed third.

Along the way, his Bulldogs won 11 district titles and 14 Bootheel Conference championships. And, in 2017, Portageville High School dedicated its basketball court in his honor, naming it Jim Bidewell Court.

“Several coaches were very influential to me from the beginning,” Bidewell said. “To start, my high school football coach, Tom Telle, along with Jim McKay and Dick Atwill, the football coaches at Portageville when I was hired. Their strict, blue-collar style of coaching and the respect they had from their players was something I admired and wanted to pattern my coaching style after.”

“The most influential basketball coach,” Bidewell said, was Gene Bess (MSHOF Legend 2016), the longtime coach at Three Rivers Community College in Poplar Bluff.

“I think he literally transformed basketball in our area and beyond with his relentless style of pressure man defense,” Bidewell noted. “I observed and copied everything I could from his practices.”

Sports had long influenced Bidewell anyway. At age 12, he himself played on an AAU basketball team that finished second nationally, losing to a team that included future NBA stars Isaiah Thomas and Kiki VandeWeghe.

In high school, the Mules reached the basketball quarterfinals his junior and senior year, when he led the team in assists both seasons. But Bidewell knew that was the end of the road athletically.

That’s why he has thrown all of his energy into developing teenagers on the basketball court, in hopes they’ll have memorable experiences before they head into the real world.

To Bidewell, it didn’t matter the talent. Effort had to be there. He also borrowed a page from UCLA coach John Wooden.

“We did very little scouting or video watching, but I think we were very hard on our players both mentally and physically in practice,” Bidewell said.

Some years, his teams played in Class 3, but most were in Class 2.

In 1991, Portageville upset defending state champion Cardinal Ritter in the quarterfinals en route to the state title, a 71-53 victory against Bishop Hogan.

“This was probably the hardest-working team I ever coached,” Bidewell said.

In 1992, a completely different group led Portageville to an 85-82 overtime victory against Cole County in the championship game.

In 1993, the Bulldogs, with what arguably was Portageville’s best team in history, beat Brookfield 63-41 to win it all. Only three teams played the Bulldogs to within 20 points – Hayti and Bernie (twice).

In 1994, a 76-66 victory against Fatima in the finals ended what Bidewell called “a miracle year” since Portageville had graduated a ton of talent the year before.

In the quarterfinals, Portageville eliminated Cardinal Ritter, which featured future big-time college basketball and NBA draft picks in 7-foot-1 Loren Woods (Wake Forest), 6-6 Chris Carrawell (Duke) and 6-10 Jahidi White (Georgetown). Portageville’s tallest player was 6-3.

His 2009 blue-collar team beat Harrisburg 60-55 in the finals. That team was defined by great chemistry and depth.

Along the way, he had the support of his wife, Marian, and their three children, Aaron, Jordan and Mallory.

“We tried to keep everything in perspective, realizing that sometimes, for whatever reason, it works out for the good, sometimes and not-so-good sometimes,” Bidewell said. “We had a poster in the coaches office that read, ‘Do your best, let God do the rest,’ so we just tried to follow that.”