Miner Sports News

• Lady Miner coach to be inducted into Hall of Fame in Moberly
  published on Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:43:41 -0600

  Missouri S&T women's basketball coach Alan Eads, who led the Lady Miners to their best season in school history during the 2007-08 campaign, will be inducted into the Lady Greyhounds Hall of Fame at Moberly Area Community College Thursday night during the school's athletic awards banquet.

  Eads spent eight seasons as the head coach at Moberly, leading those teams to a record of 199-37 and to five appearances in the National Junior College Athletic Association tournament. His first team at Moberly in the 1986-87 season finished third in the national tournament and later he guided teams to two fifth place showings and a ninth place finish in the event.

  After the 1993-94 season, Eads left Moberly to become an assistant coach for the women's program at Southeast Missouri State, then took over the Missouri S&T program in 2002. The Lady Miners went 24-7 this season and reached the championship game of the NCAA Division II Great Lakes Regional, where they lost to eventual national champion Northern Kentucky.

  "It's such a great honor to be inducted into the college's Hall of Fame, and even a greater honor to join so many great coaches before me like Dick Halterman on the women's side and so many of the men's coaches such as Cotton Fitzsimmons, Maury John, Charlie Spoonhour, Lee Kariker and Dana Altman," Eads said.

  "As a coach, it takes a great group of players to be recognized in this manner and I was extremely fortunate to have been surrounded by several which I coached at the college," he added.

  Eads joins a long line of successful coaches who have passed through the doors at Moberly to join the school's Hall of Fame. Halterman led the Lady Greyhounds to the NJCAA national championship in the 1981-82 season and later coached at Oklahoma State and Cameron. Fitzsimmons served as the head coach at Kansas State and with five teams in the National Basketball Association.

  John was a head coach at Drake and Iowa State, Kariker coached at William Jewell after his stint at Moberly while Spoonhour guided programs at Missouri State, Saint Louis and UNLV before retiring. Altman is still active in the coaching field as he is the current head coach at Creighton University.

  Eads, who is originally from Trenton, Mo., is the eighth individual inductee associated with Moberly's women's basketball program to enter the Lady Greyhounds Hall of Fame. During his eight seasons at the school, Eads was named as the NJCAA Region 16 "Coach of the Year" five times and had eight players who earned All-America honors.

  (Some information for this story was provided by Chuck Embree, Moberly Monitor-Index)