The latest episode of the Inside UMSL podcast featured a conversation with men’s basketball coach Bob Sundvold.
Bob Sundvold had been thinking about going to law school when he first took a detour into coaching college basketball.
What began with a job as a graduate assistant at South Dakota State and then the University of Missouri–Columbia quickly turned into a calling, and it led to a career that has now spanned nearly 50 years. For the past 13 seasons, he’s been the head coach at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, where he now owns the record for most wins in program history.
On the latest episode of the Inside UMSL podcast, Sundvold talked to host Nate Fleming about that journey.
“I think nobody understands – and maybe this is what I love about it – that the whole thing grips you for the entire year, mostly during your season but I get gripped even during the offseason,” Sundvold said. “Once practice starts, I’ll wake up at 3 a.m., and it’ll be something about a player. How do I get him better? How do I get him involved more? What can I run on offense that gets him a better shot? Or what do I need to do for the group?
“I’ve been married 41 years. My wife laughs about how kind of whacked out we are that coaches love doing it. And the other thing is, coaches do these jobs for low money. Our assistant coaches do a great job, but you go around the spectrum of coaching in college, whether it’s a junior college assistant or volunteer, people do it for very little money, because they love doing it. They love being around the game. They love being around young players. It just kind of grabs you.”
Sundvold, who has led the Tritons to four of the last seven NCAA Division II Tournaments, including three regional championship appearances and a run to the national quarterfinals, has found an ideal match at UMSL.
“I think the big thing for UMSL, we have about 10 scholarships for men’s basketball, and so we recruit and try to get the guys that we feel like can fit how we want to play, and they also have to fit this university,” Sundvold said. “Whether it’s the feeling on campus or it’s academics, you have a whole list of things that have to go into it for a guy to come to UMSL and be successful. We’re so lucky we’ve got great degree programs, and we’re lucky that we can tell every mother or father that your son is going to have a University of Missouri degree on their wall someday. It means something, and that’s really beneficial to recruiting and getting players here.”
Hear more of the conversation between Sundvold and Fleming below:
The Inside UMSL podcast launched last year as a joint initiative of the Office of Admissions and University Marketing and Communications. It features interviews covering innovative teaching, groundbreaking research, exciting extracurricular opportunities, athletics and other campus initiatives. New episodes of the podcast are available monthly on the Inside UMSL podcast page or wherever you listen to podcasts.
