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In his 19th season as head coach at Missouri Southern, Robert Corn has guided the Lions to 12 Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association Postseason Tournament berths and two trips to the NCAA Division II Tournament. The 1999-00 Division II Bulletin National Coach of the Year, he holds a career record of 273-236 (.536) at Southern, and is the winningest head coach in Lions basketball history. Also named 1999-00 MIAA and NABC-Oldsmobile South Central Region Coach of the Year, Corn is the only head men s basketball coach Missouri Southern has known since joining the MIAA in 1989-90. He led his 1999-2000 Lions to their first MIAA regular season championship and also led Southern to its first NCAA Division II South Central Regional championship, and its inaugural trip to the NCAA Division II Elite Eight. Corn was hired at Southern in March of 1989 and thus returned to his alma mater as the Lions fifth head coach. I think any time you get to go back and be involved in the program for which you played, it is special, Corn says. The fact that I had the opportunity to play on one of the best teams in school history has always been a source of pride for me. And then to be able to go on and win a conference championship and advance to the national playoffs while we ve been coaching here makes the experience all the more meaningful. Now we are trying to build on the tradition at Missouri Southern and make this one of the premier programs in the MIAA and in NCAA Division II. After his first two Southern teams went 12-15 and 11-17, respectively, Corn s next two squads posted back-to-back 20-win campaigns for only the second time in school history, finishing 21-8 in 1991-92 and 21-10 in 1992-93. The 1992-93 squad was one of Southern s finest, as the Lions tied for second in the MIAA. They also won their inaugural league tournament title to earn Southern s first NCAA postseason berth. Corn returned to his alma mater following 10 years as an assistant under one of the game s most respected coaches, Gene Bartow, at the University of Alabama-Birmingham. Corn went to UAB as a graduate assistant in 1979, just one year after Bartow had been hired to start the Blazers basketball program, and was later promoted to full-time assistant in 1981. During his stint there, Corn helped UAB to a 217-110 record, two Sun Belt Conference titles, four league postseason tournament crowns and nine NCAA or NIT trips. While at UAB, Corn spent nine summers coaching in Puerto Rico s Superior Basketball League and won three league titles. He was also an assistant for the Puerto Rico National Team at the 1987 Pan Am Games in Indianapolis. A native of Benton, Ill., where he was twice a special mention prep all-state performer, Corn played basketball for two seasons at Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis), including one year under Bartow, before transferring to Missouri Southern. As a senior, he was co-captain of the 1977-78 squad that went 27-9 to capture both Central States Intercollegiate Conference and NAIA District 16 crowns and advance to the quarterfinals of the NAIA Tournament. Corn was honored for his athletic and academic efforts that year as he was named honorable mention All-CSIC and all-district, as well as Missouri Southern s outstanding physical education major. He received his bachelor s degree in 1978. Upon graduation, Corn began his coaching career at Mountain Grove (Mo.) High School. He spent one season there as head basketball and assistant football and track & field coach before joining the staff at UAB, where he earned his master s degree in physical education in 1981. In addition to his duties as head coach, Corn is assistant athletic director for development and alumni relations, and is an assistant professor of kinesiology at Southern. He is married to the former Cindy Little of Muscle Shoals, Ala. They have two sons, Rob (21) and Scott Michael (13). Of his coaching philosophy, Corn says he is not looking just for someone who can put the ball in the net or bring down 15 rebounds a night. Rather, he and his staff are looking for the complete student-athlete. In fact, under his guidance, Missouri Southern basketball players have graduated at a rate of 74 percent. Since he took over in 1989-90, of the 38 Lions basketball players who have reached their senior season, 29 have graduated. Whenever we go recruiting young men, we look at three categories, he says. Number one, are they serious about academics? Do they want to earn a degree? Second, how will they fit into the community and the college? Are they going to be a good ambassador for Missouri Southern? And finally, are they going to be able to help us compete for the conference title? We know if they can help us do that, we can compete on the national level. So we re not just looking for great players. We are looking for great people. We re very proud of our school, and we want our players to share in that pride and to represent us well. This past summer, Coach Corn was inducted into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame.
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