STARKVILLE — Vic Schaefer felt the spark the first time he met Scott Stricklin.
Once Schaefer had an opportunity to visit Starkville and tour Mississippi State University’s campus and athletic facilities, it didn’t take him long to know he could bring the same spark to the school’s women’s basketball program.
On Tuesday, Schaefer displayed the intensity and the passion for the game that earned him the nickname “Secretary of Defense” when he was introduced as MSU’s seventh women’s basketball coach.
The hiring is pending the approval of the Board of Trustees, Institutions of Higher Learning.
“Anybody you talk to about me is going to tell you I am pretty intense,” Schaefer said. “I want kids to play hard. I am not real good with ones that don’t, and I think that is the challenge I always have in coaching is teaching these kids they can go to a level they never knew they had. We talk about it all of the time, it is not what we do it is how we do it.”
Schaefer said he saw that same passion in Stricklin, MSU’s director of athletics, when they met for the first time two weeks ago in a hotel room in Houston. He said he identified with Stricklin’s passion for everything associated with MSU and that Stricklin sold him on MSU and on Starkville.
Stricklin shared the sentiment and said Schaefer has the perfect combination of work ethic, competitive intensity, intelligence, and the ability to sell MSU he and members of his administration look for in coaches.
“Vic Schaefer is a slam dunk in all four areas,” Stricklin said. “He also is a great coach. He has that quality that all great coaches have: He is a winner. Whether it was at Sam Houston State, Arkansas, or Texas A&M, he helped make each of those programs better, and he is going to do the same thing here at Mississippi State.”
Schaefer has worked as an associate head coach at Texas A&M for coach Gary Blair since 2003. Prior to that, he worked as an assistant and an associate head coach for Blair from 1997-2003 at the University of Arkansas. A former head women’s basketball coach at Sam Houston State from 1990-97, Schaefer, 51, said the timing was right for him to leave his alma mater, which will join the Southeastern Conference next season, and return to running all facets of a program.
“I am excited about that opportunity,” Schaefer said. “Coach (Blair) allows me to do what I do at A&M and to develop game plans to figure out how to stop the great players and the great coaches across the country. I am excited about doing that now that I am back in the SEC.”
Schaefer has helped Texas A&M, the defending national champion, record the top four, and six of the top eight, turnover margins in the history of Big 12 Conference women’s basketball. Last season, when Texas A&M won a program-best 33 games en route to its first national title, it led the nation with a +8.03 turnover margin. It also made 10.66 steals per game. This season, Texas A&M (22-10) led the Big 12 in turnover margin (+5.4) and was second in steals (9.4).
Texas A&M earned a No. 3 seed in the NCAA tournament and will play the No. 14 seed University of Albany in the first round Saturday in College Station, Texas. Schaefer returned to Texas following his news conference in Starkville, and plans to remain with the Aggies through the NCAA tournament. He said he won’t rush the hiring of a new staff at MSU because he knows those hires will be critical in helping to elevate MSU to the next level.
MSU has advanced to six NCAA tournaments in the past 17 seasons under former coach Sharon Fanning-Otis, who announced her retirement as coach at the end of the season. The Lady Bulldogs advanced to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament for the first time in 2009-10 but went 13-17 and 14-16 in the past two seasons and failed to reach the postseason.
Blair praised Schaefer in a release on the school’s website.
“I’ve been there with him when his kids were born,” Blair said. “I was one of his groomsman at his wedding. I’ve been everywhere with him, and he’s helped me become a better coach because he tells me what I need to hear, not what I want to hear all the time. Vic’s love for A&M is one of the reasons he’s stayed here so long. He was able to teach us the traditions of Texas A&M and he is such a proud Aggie. His Aggie ring never comes off.
“I’m happy for him. Anytime you have a chance to see your assistants go on to be head coaches, it’s just like watching your son or daughter graduate from college and start their next career. That’s the most rewarding thing for a coach, besides winning a championship. It’s well-deserved and it’s time to turn the page, but the defense we run here will always stay the same.”
Schaefer credited Blair numerous times Tuesday and thanked him for giving him the freedom to do things many coaches don’t have. He said there is no secret to the philosophy he will bring to MSU and that players will have to work hard.
“I am pretty sure they are doing the same defensive drills across the border at Georgia or up in Tennessee and over in Louisiana,” Schaefer said. “There is no doubt in my mind. But again it is not what we do, but it is how we do it that makes us successful. I don’t apologize for being demanding, and our kids know that. I think our parents appreciate that. They send us an 18-year-old daughter and we’re going to send them back a 22-year-old woman who is ready to go out in the world and be successful. I think any player we have ever had over the years will tell you, ‘Coach, it was hard, it was demanding, but I am so much better for it and I am so successful at what I am doing outside of basketball because of what I learned and being a part of our team and the program you had.’ ”
Schaefer said he talked with University of Kentucky coach Matthew Mitchell, a MSU graduate who is from Louisville, and received glowing reports about the school and its athletic facilities and about Starkville. When he and his family, including his wife, Holly, and his 16-year-old twins, Blair Nicole and Charles Logan, had a chance to see for themselves, they, too, were convinced.
Schaefer acknowledged he will face a challenge in recruiting and keeping the state of Mississippi’s best players at home and getting them to come to MSU. But he has helped sign nine top-20 recruiting classes at Arkansas and at Texas A&M. He also feels MSU has plenty of great things to sell to student-athletes.
“The state of Mississippi has some very good players,” Schaefer said. “I have been in the homes of lots of great ones over the years. Some we got, some we didn’t. But the bottom line is we’ve got to do a good job in this state. If you get people to walk up to the front doors over there and they understand women’s basketball is important here at Mississippi State.
“I think from the standpoint of young people, they have got to see things to believe it. When you walk in that building I think you believe it.”
Schaefer was 29 years old when he first became a head coach. He went 80-110 in seven seasons at Sam Houston State. His first season at the school was in 1990-91, three seasons after the program transitioned from Division II to Division I. Schaefer had one winning season — 18-10 in 1995-96 — in his tenure at the school.
The hiring of Schaefer, who was named BasketballScoop.com’s 2009 Assistant Coach of the Year, received praise from several people associated with women’s basketball.
“I have known Vic for 10 years and he is more than ready and he will be almost a perfect match for everything Scott (Stricklin) was looking for in terms of someone who can recruit, someone who can teach, and someone who will be highly motivated to raise his family in your community,” longtime television analyst Debbie Antonelli said. “I think he is a terrific defensive coach. I don’t want that to be lost on the fact he can coach the other side of the ball as well. He will have a plan and a scheme that will involve commitment, hard work, and effort on the defensive end first and that will allow them to rebound and to play the way they want to play offensively.
“What he been able to do at Texas A&M I see rolling right into Mississippi State because he has a very strong family and he knows the SEC having been at Arkansas all those years. It is a great get for Mississippi State, and it is an exciting opportunity to get their program back to the NCAA tournament.”
Said Dan Olson, director of Collegiate Girls Report, a national recruiting service, “He gives them name recognition and notoriety coming from A&M. He was the main part of that happening and was a defensive specialist for shutting people up. I think Mississippi State will undoubtedly play very good half-court defense regardless of who is on the floor. He’ll be hustling all over Texas and those Southern states for kids he feels he can get in on and get into their house.
“He is going to make those kids compete every night. He is going to instill that extra effort into the kids and make them understand every possession is meaningful. It is a big win-win for them.”
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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