Ed Arnzen Hometown: Cape Girardeau, Mo. Career Record: 340-204, 20 seasons - Retired in 2002

For 18 years, Ed Arnzen has called the Southeast Missouri State women’s basketball program home. He has placed almost every type of award and milestone onto the Southeast mantle and produced some of the finest athletes to ever attend the university. He comes into the season with a 324-190 record, the program’s winningest coach ever. Last season Arnzen hit another milestone, coaching in his 500th career game.

All that from a man, who had never worked with women’s basketball prior to his appointment.

“I was so flattered that they asked me to take the position,” said Arnzen of his appointment in 1983. “But on the other hand I was telling myself that I had never even watched a women’s game.”

So what experience did Arnzen have to take over a very successful Division II program?

Arnzen got his first coaching gig, while earning degree in physical education at Southeast Missouri. The position was the assistant boy’s coach at Century High School in Ullin, Ill. He stayed from 1964-66, while finishing his degree in 1965. His next move came in 1967, when he took the boy’s head coaching position at Notre Dame High School. During his nine-year tenure, Arnzen would lead the Bulldogs to a 175-58 record, while placing third at the 1976 Missouri State 2A tournament.

1979 served as a true homecoming for Arnzen, as he got his first taste of collegiate hoops and was hired as an assistant at Southeast to then men’s head coach Carroll Williams. Four years later he would take over the women’s program.

What Arnzen lacked as a student of the women’s game, he made up for in his extensive knowledge of the game of basketball.

“It was a difficult task changing my coaching strategies,” explained Arnzen, who had always coached boys’ or men’s teams before. “I discovered that in women’s basketball they [women players] are more opt to follow the game plan and execute the plays that are called.”

With game plans in hand, Arnzen led his first team to a 23-6 record and to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Division II tournament.

Arnzen would go on to enjoy the remainder of the 80’s with a winning record, including six of the seven years with 20-plus win seasons.

And so began his destiny as the Otahks general.

The decade closed with Missouri Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA) tournament titles in 1986, ’87 and ’88 and five trips to the NCAA tournament.

The 1990-91 would serve as a major milestone for Arnzen. “That season,” he reflected, “was the highlight of my career.”

It was that season that Southeast danced into NCAA tournament lore. The team traveled all the way to the Division II national championship. After a 25-3 regular season, the Otahks won its last ever MIAA crown after a 3-0 run through the tourney. Four wins in the final rounds set the date for the championship. In a heart-breaking seven-point loss in front of the largest Otahkian crowd ever (7,064), the season ended against North Dakota State.

“It was hard to lose, especially after coming so far and playing on your home court,” said Arnzen, “but I was so proud of what we accomplished.” Last season, most of the members of that team gathered for a ten-year reunion in February. “It was a fantastic weekend to have 11 of the 13 members of that team come back. It allowed everyone, including myself, to see how well they have all done in their careers and to see the enthusiasm they still have for Southeast basketball. The only downer was that we lost the basketball game the night of the reunion.”

The difficult loss ushered in an exciting opportunity for Arnzen. The following season the entire Southeast athletic department was elevated to Division I status in 1991-92.

Southeast made an easy transition into D-I basketball with a 16-12 mark and 7-7 record in the OVC during the 1992-93 year. The next few years allowed for real adjustment, as Arnzen made changes in his game plan.

“We had been winning about 85% of our games and we had momentum (going into the 1992-93 season). Then we had our down time,” he explained of the early OVC years. “The game is so competitive. Guard play is key. Our whole offense had to change.”

Change it did, the 1998-99 season was Arnzen most successful campaign in the OVC. He led the Otahks to a 19-9 overall record, while winning 13 games in conference play. Arnzen was named OVC Coach of the Year, after the team collected its first post-season win, with a 66-60 victory over Murray State at the Show Me Center.

At the beginning of the 1999-2000 season, Arnzen reached another career milestone when he notched his 300th win in the first game of the season.

Last season Arnzen’s team started the OVC season 6-1 with that lone loss being to the eventual league champion Tennessee Tech, a game that Southeast lead until the final seconds of regulation. The Otahks finished the conference with a 9-7 record and hosted a first-round OVC Tournament game at the Show Me Center. “We started the season so hot and the first time through the conference schedule we were tough. But after February 1 we never recaptured that momentum.”

That brings Arnzen to this year, where all five starters from a season ago return. “This season our hope is to be strong that last month of the season. If we are still sharp then we will have a great shot in the conference tournament.”

In 1990, Arnzen stepped outside the collegiate game when he was selected as an assistant coach for the Southeast team at the U.S. Olympic Festival in Minneapolis, Minn.

A member of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association, Arnzen and his wife JoAnn reside in Cape Girardeau. They have two grown daughters, Cheryl and Amy, and five grandchildren.