In recent days I have had the time to reflect and reminisce about Dave Loos' storied coaching career.  And then I jumped back to the very start of our relationship. See, I knew or knew of Dave Loos long before he arrived in Clarksville, Tenn.

Way back in the early 1970s he took over his high school alma mater, Mehlville, and completely turned around a program that had not had a winner for 11 straight seasons. He left as the program's all-time wins leader—I saw two of his teams in state tourney play back when I was in the newspaper business in Cape Girardeau. He also coached one of the best Legion Baseball programs—long before travel teams materialized—in the state of Missouri.

But I lost track of Coach Loos until one day I looked down and saw him sitting on the visitors' bench prior to a Southeast Missouri game. He brought his Christian Brothers team into old Houck Fieldhouse and stunned a team that would eventually reach the Division II national quarterfinals.

Again I lost Loos' whereabouts until I got a media pass request for him to come scout the 1986-87 Govs—back when coaches were allowed to scout in person. He was in his first year as an assistant under Larry Finch at Memphis.

Four years later his name would come up again.

Most don't remember why the Governors coaching job was open. Four years after the magic run into the NCAA tournament that included a win against Illinois, the Govs were the subject of an NCAA investigation into improper recruiting—illegal contact during a dead period. Lake Kelly and his staff were forced out. Dr. Gaines Hunt conducted Austin Peay's internal investigation simultaneously as the coaching search occurred. In other words, coaching candidates really had no idea what the penalties were going to be. It didn't matter as athletics director Tim Weiser started his search and was overwhelmed with interest. He relied heavily on then-Vandy coach Eddie Fogler, who worked with Weiser at Wichita State. Coincidentally, Fogler, who has been out of coaching since 2001, now often works with schools seeking a new coach—the 1990 APSU search was his first foray into that side of it.

But one of the candidates Fogler initially didn't have much information on was Dave Loos. However, supporters began calling on his behalf. In fact, as former athletic trainer Chuck Kimmel reminded me, Memphis athletic trainer, Eddie Cantler, called Chuck to tell him Austin Peay "would be crazy not to hire him as he would be a perfect fit." Chuck passed along that information to Weiser. Others also did.

The four candidates to be interviewed were: Bob Weltlich, a Bobby Knight discipline who had been head coach at Ole Miss and Texas; Terry Truax, the head coach at Towson (State) who had just led that program to its first NCAA tournament berth; Tubby Smith, the then-lead assistant to Rick Pitino at Kentucky, and Loos, the top assistant at Memphis who rejoined his alma mater under Finch after the Dana Kirk NCAA scandal.

Loos rose above the rest during the process. He was the first person I interviewed in any athletic department capacity to bring a bound copy of his future plan for the program. Chuck also reminded me about his conversation with Coach Loos, telling him "how we all pitched in helping where we could when needed because of staffing and finances," with Loos' response: "That was no problem since he was used to sweeping and mopping the floor at Christian Brothers."

Eddie Cantler could not have been more correct…Dave Loos was the perfect fit for Austin Peay. His integrity and character were unassailable. He assumed a program that had a lot of characters and, although he was named OVC Coach of the Year in his first season after watching the Govs improve from 10-19 to 15-14, it took him awhile to build his program, with the right people.

But the night that program started to turn around came in December 1993. In fact, it was New Year's Eve against a powerful Cincinnati team that featured LaZelle Durden and Antonio Wingfield. The Govs came into the game with a 1-7 record. Although they lost 85-75, the program began to take shape. A redshirt freshman, Bubba Wells, and a freshman point guard Colby Pierce and a sophomore guard/forward Jermaine Savage all started to emerge. By year's end, the Govs had gone 10-6 in the OVC and they were on their way.

They reached the OVC finals a year later, losing Wells to his first leg stress fracture near the end of the first half. A year later, the Governors captured their first OVC tourney title under Loos, beating Murray State on two Reggie Crenshaw free throws with 0.2 seconds left.

The Governors were on their way…Wells became one of the OVC's all-time greats as did Trenton Hassell. Annually, they were OVC title challengers, winning five times. They had six consecutive 10-win OVC seasons at one point. In fact, the 2002-03 club won the Govs' second OVC title under Loos and a year later, that same group went 16-0. How defensive-minded was that club? In the first nine games of OVC play, opponents scored 60 points or less. Utilizing the same starting lineup as the previous year, only one player's scoring average rose higher from 2002-03 to 2003-04.

After letting a tourney title slip through their fingers in 2006-07, the Governors repeated as regular-season champs the next season and this time they made sure nothing fluky happened at game's end in the tourney game…APSU ran away from Tennessee State.

Fast forward to 2015-16. The Governors had to win their last two games just to have a chance to get into the tournament. They also needed Eastern Kentucky to lose its season finale at Tennessee Tech to earn a tourney berth as the No. 8 seed. What transpired those four days in March bordered on incredible. They beat Tennessee Tech by 20 points to win their opening OVC tourney game as Chris Horton scored 37 points and grabbed 21 rebounds. Then they got off the deck in the second half to stun Tennessee State before holding off Belmont in overtime at the buzzer to gain a finals berth against UT Martin.  Four games in four days was not going to stop the Governors as Jared Savage nailed eight three pointers as APSU became the first No. 8 seed to ever win the tournament.  

A year later Dave Loos leaves APSU with 502 wins, having adjusted his coaching style to fit the talents he had. Oh, he never wavered from his core values as a coach…defense and inside-out offense—and get to the free-throw line. I had to laugh at varying times when people would mention Dave Loos was "old school." My first answer always was: "Do you know who the OVC's career leader in three-pointers made is? Joe Sibbitt…and it happened 20 years ago."

Innovative... and ground breaking. Dave Loos also was one of the first coaches, at least in this league, to have a woman (Andrea Miller) in a coaching capacity. Just a few years ago Loos repeated it when he appointed Janet Wilson as one of his graduate assistants.

And, of course, his longtime and trusted athletic trainer also was a female, Joni Johnson. She led both Bubba Wells rehabs after tibial nail surgery and owned the complete trust of Loos. She also handled most of the team travel arrangements because of her loyalty to the veteran head coach—after he became AD, Joni wanted one less worry for Loos when the team went on the road.

And Joni understood the parameters in which she was working. As the USA Today report two years ago pointed out, the Govs were the lowest-funded basketball program in the OVC. They have been in the bottom half for some time, but Loos and his Govs worked around it.

The basketball Govs never ate at the best restaurants. I could not tell you how many Ryan's and Shoney's the team ate over the years. In fact, most of us were excited when Cracker Barrel became our favorite restaurant of choice.

They never stayed at the best places. Victorian Inn/Ashford Place, an old atrium-featured structure, was the place the Govs stayed when SEMO joined the league back in 1991-92. Twenty-five years later and it still was APSU's home when they played Southeast Missouri.

But that was the true essence of Loos. He was able to record 421 wins at APSU—257 OVC victories—because he always found a way to do the most with the least. He did it his way…the right way!