LINCOLN — College basketball's coaching grapevine sizzled Wednesday, unfortunately driven by sad news.
Charlie Spoonhour, one of the game's true characters, died Wednesday morning at age 72. The former Nebraska assistant and head coach at Missouri State, Saint Louis and UNLV succumbed to complications from a lung disorder.
Bret Iba, son of former Husker coach Moe Iba and himself an ex-assistant of Spoonhour, chuckled softly when asked to estimate how many friends "Spoon" had in the business.
"I'm not sure you could put a number to it," Iba said from Fort Worth, Texas. "Charlie was one of a kind.
"He made it fun for everyone. He was gracious in losing and humble in winning. He didn't let basketball get in the way of living his life, which is something that doesn't happen much anymore."
Spoonhour, a Kansas native who grew up in Rogers, Ark., arrived at Nebraska in 1981 after years as a junior high, high school and junior college head coach, and a Division I assistant.
Though he spent just two seasons on Nebraska's staff under Iba — 1981-82 and '82-83 — Spoonhour cultivated many friends with ties to the state, such as former Creighton coach and current Oregon coach Dana Altman, current Nebraska coach Doc Sadler and Missourians Jon and Bob Sundvold, formerly of Seward, Neb.
"He was one of the funniest guys in coaching," Sadler said. "But one thing that kind of hid was how competitive a person he was."
Moe Iba and Spoonhour were lifelong acquaintances and "incredibly good friends," Bret said. (Moe is retired and lives in Fort Worth, and Bret is in sales for a sports equipment company in Texas.)
Moe Iba and Spoonhour communicated regularly over the past year, even though Spoonhour spent much of that time in and out of the Duke Medical Center, where he underwent a 2010 lung transplant.
Another procedure had been considered, but his body wasn't up to it. Friends said Spoonhour's weight had dropped below 120 pounds by the time he entered hospice care.
The list of Spoonhour's former players includes Dale Ribble, who was a star at Millard South.
"He loved life, and he loved people," said Ribble, now an assistant coach at Missouri-St. Louis. "He never felt like he really worked a day in his life because he did what he loved. And he was really good at it."
Spoonhour, who left Nebraska in 1983 to take the head coaching job at what then was Southwest Missouri State, recruited Ribble but wasn't sure he had a scholarship to offer.
One of Spoonhour's assistants at the time, John Hammonds, actually encouraged Ribble to go to a Division II or NAIA school.
But Ribble walked on, and after a teammate became ineligible, he came out of a redshirt his first season and earned a full scholarship after the first semester.
"That whole redshirt decision he left up to me," Ribble said. "He wanted to make sure I had time to think about it and talk to my family. That's the kind of guy he was."
Ribble's first road trip was a Missouri Valley swing through Wichita State and Bradley. Spoonhour told Ribble he would warm up but wouldn't play in either game, in order to slowly get acclimated.
But when the starting point guard drew two early fouls at Wichita State, Spoonhour hollered for Ribble to replace him.
"I know he saw the look on my face like, 'What the heck?'" Ribble said. "When I ran by him, he said, 'Hey, I'm sorry I lied to you.' I went in for 3 or 4 minutes and didn't do anything great, but didn't do anything bad.
"When I came out, he said, 'That wasn't so bad, was it?' He knew exactly how to treat a nervous freshman."
And all other grades of players, too.
"The worst I ever got called was 'Rock Head,'" Ribble said with a gentle laugh. "Everybody loved him. When you made a mistake, you felt guilty about letting him down."
Bret Iba said Spoonhour's firm but gentle manner with players is what he remembers most from their coaching days together.
"He made the players at ease about pressure and about playing," Iba said. "That was his greatest asset as a coach, and that's not as easy at it sounds."
"Spoonball" — a defense-oriented, 3-point shooting brand of play — produced a 373-202 record in 19 seasons as a Division I head coach. Overall, he won more than 700 games. Upon retiring from coaching, Spoonhour was a television analyst and a regular on the banquet circuit.
He is survived by his wife, Vicki, and two sons, Stephen and Jay, who is head coach at Moberly (Mo.) Area Community College.
Contact the writer:
402-444-1024, lee.barfknecht@owh.com
Copyright ©2012 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
RSS Feeds