Zvosec, Richard

Richard Zvosec – (2007)

 

As a basketball player, Rich Zvosec was talented, coachable and solid. As a coach, the position at which he is being honored today, Rich has been a leader of young men, a skilled and savvy basketball tactician and has earned a reputation for building and rebuilding basketball programs throughout his career.

It all started at Lorain Catholic High School where, as a varsity basketball player, he was a three-year lettermen. In his senior season he was all Erie Coast Conference First Team, All Lorain County First Team and the Spartans Team Captain and Team Most Valuable player.

Rich continued his basketball playing days at Defiance College where he lettered on the varsity squad his final two seasons. He graduated from Defiance in 1983 with a degree in Business, but his real career, his real passion, would now take root – College Basketball Coach.

Rich began his collegiate coaching career as an assistant. Through his first five seasons as a hoops coach, Zvosec assisted at Bowling Green State University, Barton College in North Carolina and Loyola College in Maryland, but possibly earlier than expected, his first head coaching opportunity was waiting just around the corner.

In 1988, at the ripe old age of 27, he became the youngest Division I coach in the country at St. Francis College in New York. Three years after taking the reigns at St. Francis the Terriers recorded the program’s first winning season since 1969 and had the most D-1 wins in two decades. He was named the Northeast Conference Coach of the Year for the 1990-91 season.

In 1991, he took over the task of starting a new program at the University of North Florida (UNF). He took his team to the Sunshine State Conference final in just its fourth year of existence. In his second year at UNF, Zvosec led his team to an upset of No. 18 Florida Southern, and his team led the conference in scoring. In the 1993-94 season his squad vaulted to the top of the country in scoring, averaging an astonishing 106 points per game.

Zvosec’s next stop was at Millersville University in Pennsylvania where he guided his team to its best conference record in two years. His squad advanced into the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference playoffs after a two year drought.

After brief stops as an assistant at St. Peter’s in New Jersey and American University in Washington, D.C., Zvosec again found himself at the helm of a program – the University of Missouri at Kansas City (UMKC).

Rich again took over a basketball program that had seen better days, but under his guidance, the recently elevated-to-Division I UMKC Kangaroos became a perennial competitor atop the Mid-Continent Conference. In 2005 Rich was named the Mid-Continent Conference Coach of the Year and was similarly honored by CBS Sportsline and CollegeInsider.com. In his six year run at UMKC, Zvosec became the team’s second all-time winningest coach.

Off the hardwood, Zvosec has always been very active in the community. He’s spent countless hours speaking to civic organizations at every one of his stops. At UMKC Zvosec won “Telly” and MIDI awards for his television commercials promoting the basketball program.

Rich currently resides in Overland Park, KS with his wife, Sandy, a former women’s lacrosse standout with the U.S. National Team, and their three children, Colin, Devin and Kailey.

*WELCOME, RICHARD ZVOSEC,*
*INTO THE LORAIN SPORTS HALL OF FAME*