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South Alabama Hires Ronnie Arrow, Former Coach Of Texas A&m Chorpu

Keith7

By Keith7
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Keith7

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this should be a pretty good pick up for south alabama

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JAGUARS INTRODUCE ARROW AS NEW HEAD MEN’S BASKETBALL COACH

MOBILE, Ala. – University of South Alabama Director of Athletics Joe Gottfried announced at a 3:30 p.m. press conference the hiring of former South Alabama head men’s basketball coach, Ronnie Arrow. Arrow replaces John Pelphrey who took the head coaching job at Arkansas a week ago Monday.

Arrow, who was the head coach at South Alabama from 1987-1994, has spent the last eight seasons as head coach at Texas A&M Corpus Christi where he compiled a 134-91 record and took the Islanders to their first NCAA Tournament in 2007. During the Islanders’ first year in the Southland Conference, Arrow guided the team to a school best 26-7 record, the conference championship and was named Coach of the Year.

During Arrow’s tenure at Texas A&M Corpus Christi, the Islanders made a name for themselves defeating the likes of South Florida out of the Big East and Texas Christian of the Mountain West for the second straight season in 2005-06. Despite a one-point loss to Big 12 Conference member Missouri on its home court, Arrow brought the Islanders from the ground up to become a contender with the power conferences.

In 2004, Arrow put TAMUCC on the national map as it defeated Florida State 70-67 in Tallahassee and followed with an upset win over Old Dominion, handing the Monarchs one of its five losses that season. In addition to those wins, Arrow’s Islanders defeated Texas Tech, Texas A&M and 2004 NCAA Tournament qualifier, Murray State.

Arrow took over the Islanders in 1998 when the school moved to Division I and has had three consecutive 20-win seasons.

Before coming to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Arrow knew all about rising from the ashes. At the end of the 1990-91 season at USA, he was named the Sun Belt Conference Coach of the Year for the second time after engineering the most dramatic turnaround in league history. That year, his University of South Alabama Jaguars became the first Sun Belt squad ever to leap from last to first place in a single season. Picked to finish fifth in the conference, South Alabama went on to capture the league crown with an 11-3 mark.

The Jags, who finished the season with a 22-9 record, swept through the Sun Belt Tournament and advanced to the NCAA Tournament before falling to the University of Utah in a first-round tilt.

In 1987, Arrow took over at South Alabama for Mike Hanks as the schools fifth head coach. During his time in Mobile, Arrow compiled a 114-93 record and led the Jags to two NCAA Tournaments, including the thrilling 86-84 win over Alabama in the first round of the 1989 NCAA Tournament in just his second season at the helm. South Alabama lost to eventual National Champion Michigan in the second round and finished the season with a 23-9 record, won the conference regular season and tournament titles and Arrow was named Sun Belt Conference Coach of the Year.

In the summer of 1989, Arrow also coached the United States Junior World Cup Team to the gold medal in Uruguay.

His players included NBA stars Grant Hill, Calbert Cheaney and Allan Houston.

Over the years, Arrow developed a reputation in the collegiate basketball circles for up-tempo, high-scoring teams. His squads led the Sun Belt Conference in scoring four of his seven seasons at South Alabama.

His 1988-89 squad set a school and league record 91 points-per-game average and five of his seven teams tallied at least 80 points per game.

Prior to South Alabama, Arrow served as head coach at San Jacinto Junior College from 1977-87. He tallied an impressive 302-43 record and guided the Ravens to 10 TJCAC titles, as well as NJCAA championships in 1983, 1984 and 1986. He was tabbed the NJCAA Region XIV Coach of the Year in 1983,'84,'86,'87 and the national Coach of the Year in 1983 and 1986. His 1985-86 squad led the nation in scoring, averaging 101 points per game.

In junior college, Arrow coached several players who went on to enjoy careers in the NBA: Walter Berry, Alton Lister, Ladell Eackles and Larry Spriggs.

Arrow was a two-year All-Lone Star Conference honoree and a three-year letterman at Southwest Texas State. After graduating from SWT (now Texas State) with a bachelor's degree in health and physical education in 1969, he began his coaching career by serving three years as a graduate assistant coach at Sam Houston State.

He moved on to coach Pasadena High School in the 1972-73 season, capturing the District 23-4A Coach-of-the-Year honors.

Arrow and his wife, Nelda, have a daughter, Ailey.

Edited by Keith7
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Censored by Laurie Veteran

Censored by Laurie

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Would somebody please explain to me what South Alabama has done to get themselves involved in the coaching carousel. First, John Pelphrey's skins include one NCAA tourney and a first place regular season finish in the Sun Belt that netted them a first round exit from the conference tourney. Second, Ronnie Arrow literally built the TAMUCC program and got them to the NCAA's in their first year of eligibility...had South Alabama made the NCAA's, they would've been a 13 or 14 seed...TAMUCC was a 15, not a huge step up. If Arrow is Billy Gillespie-ing (my new term for a coach who stays put for two years and moves up...replacing the old the previous term of "Larry Brown-ing") I think he could've held out another year and found something a bit more prestigeous than South Alabama.

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Arkstfan Proficient

Arkstfan

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Didn't Arrow get into some trouble at USA the first time around -- NCAA violations or somesuch?

No.

USA got in trouble with the guy they hired to replace the disaster they hired to replace Arrow.

The USA president at the time was apparently a sport expert and wanted Arrow to run the Marymount offense. Forced him to bring in an assistant to install it. Utter disaster. Arrow said time to scrap it, assistant said need to fully commit for it to work. President agreed with assistant. Arrow quit mid-season and it just got worse and they had to admit they'd gone down the wrong path.

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