Long, self-reflecting summer has Gilmore eager for upcoming season

October 29, 2008
By Robert Jackson
Sports Writer

Your team goes 2-6 in the final month of American Midwest Conference play, gets bounced from AMC tournament play after a horrendous night shooting from the field, and you lose seven seniors, all of whom saw playing time during the regular season.

But the flipside is you get to rebuild to avoid going 2-6 in the final month of AMC conference play and give a better effort in the tournament by bringing in new talent—particularly nine freshmen.

The only problem is when all those freshmen committed between May and July there was still more than 30 days before the start of school, and even more weeks into the school year before you could get your hands on them during organized, sanctioned practices.

“It was like being in a race car but you could only go 20 miles-per-hour,” Head Coach Roy Gilmore said.

You get the feeling Gilmore is ready to start this season because he knows he’s made as much changes to himself as he had to the basketball team.

“During the exit interviews a lot of players—players I respected because they worked hard during practice and the games—they’d say ‘You weren’t the same coach,’” Gilmore said. “When you hear that you start looking at yourself in the mirror.”

Gilmore said the disappointing 6-8 AMC record last year was the result of him “getting fat” off of the 10-5 record the team posted during the 2006-2007 season. What became symptomatic of Gilmore’s “fat” was him not motivating and reaching his players.

When last year came to a close Gilmore hit the recruiting trail to scope out prospective talent and hear insights from coaches at different universities.

“You have to lean on the coaching fraternity that you have or you will go crazy in this business,” Gilmore said.

Gilmore networked with current University of Evansville Men’s Basketball Head Coach Marty Simmons, current University of Southern Indiana Women’s Basketball Head Coach Rick Stein, and current University of Southern Illinois-Edwardsville Women’s Basketball Head Coach, Wendy Hedberg. Each offered insights dealing with preparation, recruiting, and motivation respectively.

“Marty his thing was always ‘do what you do,’” Gilmore said. “Wendy she’d always say ‘the players don’t want it as bad as you so you got to find ways to make them want it as bad as you.’ And Rick he’d always just say, ‘Recruit better. Go get the kids with the right attitudes and character.’

Rick and I always talked a lot about how tough that is because the kids these days might be spoiled and expect too much.”

The long summer where Gilmore sat rolling along in his race car finally came to an end, and when the team first met for practice it was the players, not Gilmore, that brought the energy. Helping to establish the different energy Gilmore sees in this year’s team are the three senior captains: Erika Snyder, Tiffany Sproat, and Shana Stein.

“No one ever sees them not being in the weight room, not going to class,” Gilmore said. “They’re leading by example.”

Gilmore and the seniors on this team will take on a challenging schedule with several future Great Lakes Valley Conference opponents and an eight game road stretch from Nov. 25 to Jan. 8 and an AMC conference looking to score one last victory over the Prairie Stars.

“They’re going to bring it every night,” Gilmore said. “It’s like Fisher said ‘This is the last chance a lot of these teams get to see us’ and they’re going to give it their best.”