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Big Blue's Kerans isn't going anywhere but up
DECATUR - Lori Kerans isn't ready to stand atop Shilling Hall and announce to the world that her Millikin University women's basketball team is now prepared to win four or five more Division III national championships.
But having won its first national title in March, Kerans now knows the crazy little secret only national championship coaches know: She's had teams good enough to do it in the past, and she'll have teams good enough to do it in the future. Seizing on the momentum that inevitably comes with a national championship, Kerans is currently piecing together a monster incoming freshman class that could number 20 recruits and might - just maybe - put Millikin in position to take another run at the top this season.
"What this championship helped me understand is that there are so many teams out there, including ours, that in the past have had the ability to win national championships," she said this week. "You have to be a little bit lucky, a lot good, but it's so easy for me to envision winning another one, where before, it was kind of a pipe dream. Now, I know for sure we can win another one. I don't know if we will, but I know that we can."
That acknowledgement has been an incredibly uplifting realization for Kerans, who won't get so much as an extra nickel in salary for winning the title. "I care zero about that," said the woman who doubles as Millikin's director of athletics. "What meant the most to me was that (Millikin President) Doug Zemke and his wife flew out to Virginia to be with us at the Final Four. He has just embraced our team and been incredibly supportive. A hug and 'a job well done' means a whole lot to me."
Kerans fierce loyalty to Millikin is no surprise. She will flatly tell you she'd politely say "no" if the University of Tennessee showed up and offered her a chance to replace legendary Pat Summitt.
"If Bruce Weber - the god himself - came over and offered me a chance to be his assistant, I wouldn't do it," Kerans said. "My folks just moved (from Newton to Decatur), my sister, her husband and my niece and nephew live literally across the street. I love Millikin. I love Decatur. And I wouldn't go."
Instead, she'll enthusiastically build on a stunning record of success. Now 41, Kerans was named Millikin's head coach at age 21, which is like handing the keys to the family car to a 14-year-old.
Only once did she bang that car on the garage door. Just one losing season in her tenure, 11 College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin championships and now a national championship pelt to nail to the wall.
What's so invigorating is having affirmed that what you teach - how you play offense, defense, condition and build a roster - works at the highest level. Kerans has been taking this message into the homes of recruits and they're listening like never before.
"I don't know if they are just being polite, but with the kids and their families you can see eyes twinkle and heads nod and you can see them believing what we're saying," she said. "Not that you have to have a national championship, but it sure adds instant credibility. And having the trophy in my office, that sure helps."
This will be the largest incoming freshman class of women's basketball hopefuls in 35 years of women's basketball at Millikin. "I project we'll get to 20 by the time we're done," Kerans said.
Not all of them, of course, will deliver the commitment Kerans asks from them at the start.
And commitment is the key word. She likes the bacon and eggs analogy. "You look at a plate of eggs and bacon and you can say the chicken participated. But it was the pig who made a commitment," Kerans said, laughing.
Those who do commit have a chance to repeat the special season this recent team enjoyed.
One who is already chasing that dream is Karin Olson, who missed the entire post-season after breaking a bone in her foot one minute into the Senior Night game at Griswold Center.
That could have been the moment Millikin's grand dreams crumbled. Instead, it turned out to be an opportunity of inspiration that opened doors rather than closed them.
"Karin is the toughest player I've ever coached," Kerans said, almost reverently. "She set the standard every single day in practice for how physical and how tough practice was going to be."
But rather than sulk on the sideline, Olson appointed herself the unofficial coach of the post players. And her reassurance absolutely bolstered the confidence of younger players, like Decatur freshman Lindsay Ippel, who might otherwise have struggled without her.
Now, more than a month after the national championship, Olson has her cast off and is playing again. "Only every day," she said Monday, her red hair dancing like a brush fire.
On Thursday, Kerans will join Illini coach Bruce Weber and national speaker Ron Brown in addressing a sellout crowd of 1,000 at the Community Leaders Breakfast at the Holiday Inn. The subject, appropriately, is winning.
It's a subject Kerans knows well. And now she has the national championship trophy to prove it.
Mark Tupper can be reached at mtupper@;herald-review.com or 421-7983.
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