The University of Central Arkansas and the state of Arkansas lost a legend Monday when head women?s basketball coach Ron Marvel announced his retirement.
Marvel, 60, is the winningest women’s coach in Arkansas college basketball history with 489 victories in his 24 seasons at UCA.
?This was a very difficult decision,? said Marvel, ?but for myself and my family, it was the right decision. It was hard because I truly love the game of basketball.?
?I never dreaded a day of work, I honestly enjoyed coming to work every day. I?ve always felt like being at UCA was a blessing from God and that I was lucky to be here. I think a lot of coaches today think the other way around, that a university is lucky to have them. I don?t agree with that.?
Marvel, who was inducted into the UCA Sports Hall of Fame last fall, led his next-to-last team to the NCAA Division II Elite 8 in 2003, a first for the program. This season?s team advanced to the NCAA South Regional for the third consecutive year, ending their season last Friday in Winter Park, Fla.
?Ron Marvel has had one of the most successful careers in the history of women’s basketball in the nation,? said UCA President Lu Hardin. ?He is a legend and the name ?Ron Marvel? is synonymous with Sugar Bear basketball. More importantly, he is a good, decent and honest man who will be sorely missed.?
A Coal Hill native, Marvel has coached for 39 years, including stints at Fountain Lake and Magazine high schools before coming to UCA. He began his career as Sugar Bears? coach in 1980 and immediately turned around a program that had endured three consecutive losing seasons. In his first season at UCA, Marvel led the Sugar Bears to a 17-11 record and a postseason appearance.
Over the next two decades, with teams that featured All-Americans such as Terri Conder, Natalie Martin, Sandra Reed, Checola Seals and Angela Watson, the Sugar Bears made 12 consecutive postseason appearances. In his 24 seasons, Marvel reached the postseason 21 times and took teams to the AWISA, NAIA and NCAA tournaments.
?I?ve always said, I spent the first 15 years in coaching preparing for a job like UCA,? Marvel said. ?I?ve spent the past 24 years trying to build respect for this program. I hope I?ve done that.?
Marvel said more than anything, he will miss the hundreds of players he had the privilege of coaching
?There?s been so many good kids, you can?t name one without naming them all,? he said. ?Once they were on my team, they became my kids, from then on. I?m still willing to help any of them any time I can. And I?ve had a lot of them help me over the years, too.?
Marvel?s greatest teams may have been his last three, squads that all advanced to the NCAA Tournament. The best game among his 696 games at UCA also occurred recently.
?The overtime win over Delta State two years ago in the NCAA regional, when (All-American) Carone (Harris) scored 44 points, was probably the best game I?ve been a part of,? Marvel said. ?And the most important game was probably last year when we beat Arkansas Tech in to win the regional and advance to the Elite 8. Those were both pretty special games.?
In those 39 years, Marvel touched a lot of lives. He said that was the goal when he entered the profession.
?One of my heroes was always my high school coach (Leroy Douglas),? Marvel said. ?The thing that impressed me so much about him was how many people he knew. I used to think he was a rich man because of all the people he knew. And I feel the same way about myself because I know thousands of people.?
?I?ve made a lot of great friends. I feel like I?ve helped a lot of people and a lot of people have helped me.?
Marvel did have one piece of advice for current and future coaches.
?I think coaches need to consider staying in one place and trying to build a program,? he said. ?It?s one thing to be ambitious, but I never thought that jumping around from job to job was the way to be successful. I really think you need to try to find a place you want to be and build it up.?
Something Marvel did as well as anyone for 24 years.
