Note: This story will appear in the Governors Gameday basketball program, Jan. 17-28.

Twenty-five years. A quarter of a century.

That's how long Dave Loos has been at the helm of Austin Peay State University men's basketball program. He's seen it all, he's done it all and spent a lot of time doing it with the dual yoke of responsibility that comes with being head coach and Athletics Director. That's a tough job – jobs, actually.

In his office in the Dunn Center bowels, you can find a memory of just about every iconic moment at Austin Peay since 1990. A championship ring here, a banner there, photos (Reggie Crenshaw connecting on the game-winning free throws in the 1996 OVC championship contest; "The Block" in the OVC semifinals) and remembrances crammed into a corner of Room 178 serve as reminders of what's been a whirlwind odyssey.

To think this guy dreamt of becoming a baseball star once upon a time.

The 'Loos' name was once more synonymous with success on the diamond. Loos was a stand-out baseball player at the University of Memphis, earning All-Missouri Valley Conference honors in 1969 and induction into the Memphis M-Club Hall of Fame in 2002. For 10 years after graduating, Loos' five-hit game against Bradley was still a single-game high and would stand to this day had it not been for a fortuitous outing against Delta State that provided three of Memphis' top-hitting games ever – a game Memphis won 39-3.

Loos' basketball accolades may not look as impressive, but Loos impressed well enough to earn his first coaching gig out of school, as a graduate assistant for Moe Iba, who had coached him at Memphis from 1966-69.

Loos stayed in Memphis once his graduate assistantship was up, first as the junior high coach at Colonial and then as assistant basketball coach and head baseball coach at Christian Brothers College (now University) for four seasons. He landed back home at Mehlville High School as a 27-year old head men's coach, coaching his alma mater for eight years before returning to CBU as the head men's basketball – with the move from high school to college actually offering a sizable paycut.

Wanting to break into Division I coaching, Loos left CBU again eight years later to take an assistant job at Ole Miss. He wasn't out of Memphis long however – not even long enough to move his family.

"I was at Ole Miss all of three months when Larry Finch got the head coaching job at Memphis (in the aftermath of the Dana Kirk scandal)," Loos said. "I had coached him as a freshman when I was a grad assistant – this was before freshmen were allowed to play varsity and I was the freshman team coach. My family hadn't even moved from Memphis yet."

"You hear all the time about coaching trees," he continued, recalling who he learned the most from on his way up. "I played for Iba, so he would certainly be a big influence on me. Bob Stephenson was my boss at Christian Brothers and coached me at Memphis, and he was a huge influence. And I learned a lot from Larry Finch, certainly."

And that led here.

At the time, Loos had no way of knowing his stay at Austin Peay would span six (and counting) University Presidents, see the campus' yearly enrollment increase by more than 4,000 or coach six (current assistant coach Bubba Wells, Nick Stapleton, Drake Reed, Wes Channels, Anthony Davis and Trenton Hassell) of the program's top 10 career scorers. Loos himself is enshrined in the APSU Athletics Hall of Fame alongside Wells, Stapleton and Hassell.

"I couldn't have envisioned being here 25 years, but I never approached any job as a stepping stone," Loos said. "I always approached each job like it was going to be one that I was going to have for a long time. When I was an assistant, I thought I wanted to be a head coach, but I never thought, 'Alright, I'll stay here for three years, then move to this level, then that level.' It's never been about money for me, although that is important. I treated each job like it was one I wanted to keep and needed to keep.

"There were pivotal points along the way here. I didn't know I'd be here a long time until it got to being a long time (laughs). It's all about timing and fit. There were times that I thought leaving would be an opportunity for change and I thought, 'Man, that wouldn't be very smart right now, because we've got a pretty good group of people coming back.' One of them is in the next office (points in the direction of Wells' office) – he was pretty good. There were other opportunities along the way and the issue was my family, that it wasn't the right time to be moving my kids. They were in a stage in their life where it was not the best thing to do."

The passing of time has left its mark with Loos, who has seen college hoops transition from a state where freshmen couldn't play their first season to top-end freshmen never even seeing a second year. Regardless of what generation he's coaching, Loos has been around long enough to know that time has changed the name of the game.

"I think players still want to be coached and disciplined, but the culture has changed," Loos said. "I think summer basketball has had a lot to do with that. Kids dedicate themselves to basketball only, more and earlier than they used to. When I was growing up, everybody played all the sports. We didn't have AAU or summer basketball, so in the summer we played basketball during the day and baseball at night. Players specialize a lot earlier."

Loos is rolling now. He's seen the game take on a life of its own, going from a way to pay for college to a way to make millions. And he would like everyone to remember that's not always how it works.

"It's all about the next level for a lot of guys now," he continued. "I can remember the day when we walked into our first team meeting at Memphis, and I'm convinced 14 guys in that room thought they were going to the NBA. We all grow up with dreams – I grew up thinking I was going to be the starting shortstop for the Cardinals. There's nothing wrong with that. But the game-changer used to be getting a college degree and somewhere along the line that has been pushed to the backburner. EVERYBODY thinks they're going to the NBA or Europe or they'll just play somewhere. A lot of people should focus on that NCAA advertisement you see – 99 percent of us are going pro at something other than sports."

It hasn't all been basketball for Loos, of course. When Kaye Hart left her post as Athletics Director in 1997, Loos was approached about becoming the interim director until Dr. Sal Rinella could find a permanent replacement.

He would hold that post for 16 years.

"I knew nothing about being an athletic director, and some would say I didn't when I stepped down either," Loos said with a chuckle. "But the AD here had resigned and they asked me if I was interested. My first answer was a question – can I continue being the coach? Coaching is my passion, and I've always known that. They said, for a short time but that eventually I'd have to make a decision. That short time turned into 16 years."

After 25 years at Austin Peay – and 45 roaming one sideline or another – Loos isn't just hanging on for a paycheck or the opportunity to rack up 500 career wins. You have to have passion, ingrained in your DNA, to stay at it with any sort of sustained success. As five-time OVC Coach of the Year, the conference's all-time wins leader and seven-time conference-championship winning coach, it's safe to say he's had a bit of success.

"I often have people ask me about their kids – 'How do I know when they're playing too much?'" he said. "My answer is, are they having fun? Do they like it? That's true of me too. I still love what I'm doing, every day. It has its moment, everything does. I still enjoy what I'm doing, I still have the energy for it and I'm still having fun, so I don't worry about it. Sometimes, I think I'm supposed to be seeing things because of what other people think – another thing I've learned is not to pay too much attention to anybody, no matter if they're telling you how good you are or how bad you are. I've had people tell me to do this, do that, time for this, time for that. If you pay too much attention to it, you lose focus on what you should be doing."