OPINION |
Jay Spoonhour was sitting in the sun last spring, watching his son’s high school baseball game, when he got a call from Missouri State basketball coach Dana Ford.
“I figured he was just calling to talk and that was great,” Spoonhour said.
Which Ford was — about an opening on his coaching staff. Spoonhour was flattered to be considered, but politely told Ford that he was enjoying life without basketball and had just taken charge of an insurance agency in St. Louis.
Being a sports dad felt pretty good
Let go as head coach at Eastern Illinois in March of 2021 after eight seasons, Spoonhour found joy in watching daughter Grace run cross country and sons Charlie and Sam play basketball and baseball. After nearly 30 seasons coaching college basketball at nine different schools, being a sports dad with normal 8-to-5 working hours felt pretty good.
“I didn’t get to watch my kids play ball when I was coaching,” Spoonhour said. “I got to watch every one of Gracie’s meets, every one of Charlie’s games in basketball and baseball, and every one of Sam’s games. Nobody in any job gets to do that. I was really happy I got to do that.
“When I was out of coaching, I really thought I was out,” Spoonhour added. “I had no designs on trying to come back.”
Missouri State is the right place at the right time
But Ford is an excellent recruiter.
“He said, ‘We’ve got a great group of guys and you’ll love it.’ That’s basically what he said and he’s right,” Spoonhour said. “He’s a convincing guy.”
A few weeks after the initial phone call, the son of Missouri State coaching legend Charlie Spoonhour was having second thoughts. He gave Ford a ring and asked if the job was still open. Fast forward six months and Jay Spoonhour feels he’s in the right place at the right time.
Back in his hometown — or as close as he has to one — Spoonhour has realized that his passion for coaching basketball still burns hot. Where he’s doing it fits like a comfortable glove.
“My whole life, I lived in so many places that I never really knew where to say I was from, but Springfield is the one I always said,” Spoonhour said, noting he was born here in 1970 while his dad was a graduate assistant for Bears coach Bill Thomas.
Living the nomadic basketball life
Charlie was off to take a coaching job at Oklahoma the next year and the nomadic lifestyle was underway for young Jay. He didn’t return to Springfield until his final two years of high school, after living with his mother in Iowa for a time. He played point guard for Glendale High from 1987-89 — during the height of the Bears’ run of five NCAA Tournaments under his dad — and went on to play basketball and graduate from Pittsburg State, where he was a team captain as a senior.
“I don’t think I lived more than a total of three years here, but it felt like home and that’s how it feels now,” Spoonhour said. “We were always here in the summers, going to the lake and all that stuff, but I never had an address here except for three years.
“I didn’t live in a house for more than three years until I moved to Charleston and I was 45. Most folks, other than military people, don’t understand that life.”
Reconnecting with his old hometown
Since joining Ford’s staff during the summer, Spoonhour said it’s been funny to run into people he knew from back in high school or Bears fans from back in the day.
“Not seeing people literally for 30 years and then seeing them again, they look at me funny and I look at them funny,” he said with a laugh. “We’re sort of trying to figure out who each other is.
“Everything here has been absolutely great. The staff and the team. Everything about it has been really good.”
Enjoying the role of assistant coach
It’s been good for Ford as well. He’s been able to add a veteran with college head coaching experience, plus one who has connections with the program and some intangibles.
“His optimism is off the charts,” Ford said. “And he’s been around when Bears basketball has probably been at its best in the Division I era.”
Spoonhour said he’s enjoying being back in an assistant’s role for a lot of reasons, with the chance to spend time working with and getting to know players topping the list.
“As a head coach you don’t get to spend as much time with the players as you might think,” he said. “Dana does a much better job of it than I did, at building relationships with guys. This is a really good group of guys. They really listen and they try to play together.”
Bringing up a new generation of Bears
The Spoonhour-Missouri State connections run deep and will be even deeper in the future. Jay’s daughter Grace decided to come to Missouri State last spring, even before Jay received that call from Ford.
Son Charlie, a senior right-handed pitcher at Vianney High School, signed earlier this week to play for Missouri State’s baseball program. How proud would Grandpa Charlie, who died in 2012, be about having a grandson coming to wear a Bears baseball uniform?
”When he tweeted that he committed, with a Missouri State Bears uniform on, I sent that to every one of my dad’s friends who’s still living,” Jay Spoonhour said. “I said, ‘How about this?’ Every one of them replied, ‘Wouldn’t Chuckster have loved this?’ And he would have.”
Jay wants you to share memories of Charlie with his kids
Whether it’s Grace, Charlie or eighth-grade son Sam, who’s in St. Louis with Jay’s wife Nicole to finish out his middle school year, Jay encourages those who knew his father to share stories with the kids.
“He didn’t really get to know them,” Jay Spoonhour said. “Gracie, he saw some, but he didn’t get to know any of the kids. I think people around town think they’ve heard all these stories about their grandpa, and they haven’t. So feel free if you bump into one of my kids to tell them a story.
“They’ve only heard, ‘What a good guy he was.’ And he was probably as known for that as he was for being a ball coach, but they haven’t heard as many stories as you would think.”
Meanwhile, Jay Spoonhour is glad he reconsidered Ford’s initial pitch. The camaraderie of coaching and seeing players succeed is a lot more satisfying than saving people $16 per month on their insurance bundle.
Bears open home schedule Monday
Missouri State opens the home season at 7 p.m. Monday when Oral Roberts visits Great Southern Bank Arena. Both teams suffered close road losses in their openers — Missouri State at West Virginia and ORU at Texas-Arlington. For ticket info, call (417) 836-7678.
