Why They Coach: Stephanie Priesmeyer

PM: We start everyone with the same question. What sports did you play growing up?

SP: "I grew up in Seymour, Indiana and basketball was my first love. Growing up in Southern Indiana, that's kind of, our gym if you look it up, I think our high school gym seats maybe eight thousand people. So basketball was huge. Played golf. I actually did everything. I was a cheerleader, I was a volleyball player, I was a tennis player, golfer, basketball. Did gymnastics for a little bit. Could do the penny drop off the low bar and that was about as far as I got. Then seventh grade, I really stuck with basketball and golf and then high school, I played other sports up until freshman year and then it was just basketball and golf."

PM: Basketball was winter and golf was spring?

SP: "We had fall golf in Indiana. I did basketball in the summer, AAU basketball, and then I also did junior golf. I was traveling around, I played nine basketball games during the week and had a junior tournament at the end of the week or something. You don't see that much anymore. Everybody kind of specializes."

PM: How different is golf at that level?

SP: "Let's just say I probably wouldn't make the team today. Back in the day, so I played for Mizzou, but the level of the junior talent as far as the golfers, it's crazy good. But we had a great junior program in the state of Indiana...Back then you didn't have to qualify for the U.S. Girls Junior, you could just sign up for it. Now you have to go to qualifiers around the country and only the best get in the tournament."

PM: Is that because there just weren't that many people playing back then?

SP: "Yeah, not as many. It's grown quite a bit."

PM: So how do you get from Seymour, Indiana to Mizzou?

SP: "That's interesting. I won the PGA Junior in the state of Indiana and when you do that you go to the national tournament, which is at West Palm Beach. At that time, instead of parents kind of hanging around, you got paired with a different girl from a different state. So I got paired with Amy Smothers, who is now Amy Hay, from the state of Missouri. So we were roommates for that whole tournament and I was like, 'Yeah, I'm going to go south.' I didn't know where I was going, but everybody says they want to go south. She's like, 'Why don't you come to Missouri?' We hit it off. We were like best friends after that week. And I was like, 'Missouri?' Which is what pretty much everybody says initially, until you come and visit. So I thought, 'well, that's kind of cool. Maybe we'll take a visit together.' So we took a visit, I'm thinking it was maybe in January. Hearnes Center, we had tickets for a basketball game and it was a Mizzou/Oklahoma basketball game. That's, what, 89, Doug Smith, Anthony Peeler. Buzzer beater in the corner right in front of us. We're sitting front row, which would be a violation today, coach's tickets. Sitting front row, the ball like basically lands in my hands. And I love basketball. So I'm like, 'I'm coming to Mizzou!' Hadn't even seen the golf course. 'I'm coming to Mizzou! I can't wait for this. This is gonna be awesome.' And I really didn't see the golf course until I came that next fall. I'm from a small town, flat, cornfields and then I experienced A.L. Gustin for the first time. Not flat. I couldn't hit a sidehill lie. There was so much I had to learn when I got here. But that's how I got here and then I never left. I went home one summer and I said, 'Nope, I'm not coming home again.' So I've really been out here since 1994."

PM: So you finish your college playing career. Was it an option to keep playing?

SP: "No, I knew right away I wanted to teach and coach. I did my student teaching with Sara Hulse, who's a long time golfer here in town, at Hickman High School. So it was really, really lucky. I feel like I've been really fortunate. I've been at the right place at the right time and know the right people, but she was retiring from coaching golf and being the PE teacher. And I'm like 'that's what I want to do.' So I was able to student teach with her and just basically take over her position. So I started up with the golf team at Hickman. Then I coached basketball at Rock Bridge, which was weird, for a year or two, and then I started coaching with Tonya Mertz. I probably did that for three or four years before I was at Mizzou in 2001.

PM: So when did you know you wanted to be a coach? Or was it more that you wanted to teach?

SP: "It was both. It was early. I feel like probably my sophomore or junior year in high school I really knew. My grandfather, Robert Demske, he was 44 years, a teacher, coach. He taught me a lot. Tall, dark, handsome guy, very athletic, very strong. He was at our local school that I went to for 44 years. He coached almost everything, but basketball, the younger kids, was his thing. And then my dad (Larry Cooper), who's a two-sport athlete when he was growing up, played baseball at Butler, also 45 years teaching, coaching. Coached everything. That's where my basketball comes from because I just basically grew up in a gym with him. I was doing my thing on the side when he was yelling at his guys...Then my basketball coach, Donna Sullivan, we called her 'Sull,' she was my PE teacher. You have like a zero hour or something where you're just like maybe hanging out. I just hung out with her. She was my basketball coach. Then my golf coach, Bob Krietenstein, then my college coaches, I just knew. I think a lot of coaches probably do this because of the influence of parents and the people that have supported them or mentored them. When you have those great experiences, it's like that's what you want to do. You want to make somebody feel and support, mentor, coach, how people have affected your life. I hear a lot of stories like people's childhoods and how negative or how bad things were and I look back and I think 'I wish my life could be like what my kids experience.' No technology, playing in the neighborhood, being able to ride your bike without fear of being kidnapped. It just seems like a different world now, but I think all those people really laid a foundation for me. There was no way I was probably ever going to do anything else."

PM: Did your dad or your grandpa ever actually coach you?

SP: "My dad stopped coaching girls golf in high school when I was a freshman. He didn't want to be my coach. He taught me early on but then there was a point where your dad can only do so much. I started getting professional lessons from actually one of his former students who was the head pro at Valhalla, then at Crooked Stick and now he's the director of golf at Crooked Stick. That's Tony Pancake. We lost his daughter. She went to Clemson. I thought we had a chance to get her.

He was really good. I do remember, my dad was probably like a lot of golf dads, pushing me to do more and I was really independent, very stubborn and I hated it when he told me to go practice. I didn't want to practice when he told me to practice so I would start riding my bike out to the golf course so he wouldn't know I was out there so he wouldn't be standing behind me while I was hitting balls. Then I told him 'if you tell me to practice one more time, I'm not going to play anymore.' I do it because I love it. Looking back, that's where my phase kind of kicked in, being a teenage girl. But that's just how hard-headed I was. I think that still kind of was part of my drive to be independent with it."

PM: How much is that relationship still a part of your coaching? When I talked to Brian Smith he said his dad was a coach and he is still the first person he calls after every match.

SP: "First person. Yeah. First person for me too. I was a daddy's girl for sure. My mom is a retired nurse. I never feel like I lived up, I still wish I could work the hours that she did and she always had dinner on the table and just amazing mother and all this. I was, I think, just really drawn to my dad with all the sports we did. It was like that. I don't remember a lot of 'I love yous' growing up until maybe after college and I think that was kind of just how it was in the time. We're all real close and he's the person I call. We talk about it, we talk about things within the team dynamic, if I'm down on myself or whatever, he's certainly the one that I go to."

PM: Some people have also told me you take the good things from coaches you've had, but there are also things you take and you remember because you don't want to do those things when you're a coach. Do you take good and bad lessons along the way?

SP: "Yeah. I think I've done this 18, 19 years now. I think I"ve changed. I look back, I'm like maybe those first couple years I did or said something. That's different as well too. The athletes, not that they're soft, but I think that they are sometimes sensitive. We're certainly in a position where the things that we say, they're going to take to heart. I think it's always important to treat them really well, be really mindful of where our words are coming from. If you have a question of 'Do you need to say that?' it's maybe hit the pause button, write it down and if you still feel the same way. I think we've been told that many times, if you're sending that email, let's pause and be really sure before we send it out there. It's the same thing for us as coaches. Sometimes they need to hear the tough stuff and sometimes the tough stuff is hard to say. Then I think it's how you say it. That's where, I think over the years, I've certainly improved my communication skills of 'I'm telling you this because I love you and I'm concerned about you, but here's the deal.' And I think they absolutely can get behind that and respect that."

PM: So you're coaching golf and basketball in high school and you grew up in a basketball family. Did you think you would coach basketball or when did golf become the full time deal?

SP: "I knew in high school golf was my avenue. I loved to play basketball, but I was like all-state golf and just all-conference basketball. I wasn't going to be getting any basketball scholarships. Then just getting here, though, Peter Fields, who was associate AD, I was coaching his daughter, Bri, at Hickman. So that's how it all kind of got connected. I was still connected with the team because I was in town so Tom Loyd was coaching at that time and that was the year that he was retiring so it just kind of worked out with Peter contacting me and asking me, because the players had said 'Contact Coop' so that just kind of worked out that way. That doesn't happen in this day. That was back before we had assistant coaches, facilities, that was probably four years before people started to build places like this and then still it took us till 2013 to get our facility out here. It was just kind of coming up."

PM: So you have that connection. A lot of people say you need that break to get to this level. Do you ever look back and think how fortunate it was that you knew those people?

SP: "Definitely. I've talked to younger coaches, coaches maybe that are assisting or even former players of ours that want to get into coaching. I tell them my story. They're having to work a lot harder now to get their foot in the door. Whether they start off as a GA, or an assistant. They need to know somebody. They need some kind of break for them to basically get their foot in the door. That was definitely my case."

PM: How different was coaching college kids versus high school kids? And also in there, you don't have to recruit in high school.

SP: "You're recruiting your own players. There's also a huge step in the level of competition. I had some really great teams at Hickman. I coached the boys team at Hickman too and I remember my first year I had 72 boys try out. And I kept 22. I had volunteers to do scoring for qualifying because, like, I don't know, sometimes the boys don't count all their strokes. Sometimes girls too, but I was really concerned about that being very fair and making sure that we had a good group and all that stuff. It was like a football meeting when I met with all the players and the parents in the cafeteria at Hickman. I was like, 'we're definitely going to have to make some cuts.' But I think just overall level of play and for the girls I tried not to cut and just really tried to work with them. I really believe that skill for women to have and young girls, I had one parent years ago tell me her daughter kept her job in New York. The company was cutting employees and she got kept on because she could play golf. I don't know if they had some kind of company scramble or what, but just having that skill. I just think if you've got daughters, they need to be playing golf because it really is a good life skill. Whether they play in college or anything, it's still just a great skill to have."

PM: So you've been in Columbia about 30 years now. Was there ever a thought of going somewhere else?

SP: "You know, there were, I think five or six years into being here, I got some calls from some other programs. Ed Stewart was my sport supervisor at the time, and then he had a conversation 'What is this? What are you doing?' I'm like, 'I'm not going anywhere.' I really had no desire to leave. My husband's family is here and my family really is just six-and-a-half hours away so it's pretty easy to get there. I think when you play for a school and you just kind of why would I leave? And for me, some people leave for money, some people leave for another challenge. For me, I love Columbia, I love Mizzou, I love what I do, I love having our families really close. So that didn't interest me at all. I feel fortunate to be here. Lived through three AD's and still going and love the people I work with and I think it's just a really special place."

PM: Big picture, what's the best part of being a coach?

SP: "I think just overall the relationships. I feel like I'm pretty close with players, I think even after they're gone it becomes even stronger. I used to love the travel a lot. (Now) I never want to go anywhere. After we're home from some trips, I'm just like such a homebody now. But that part of it, I used to love that quite a bit. And recruiting. Recruiting and getting to know new people. I think I'm pretty easy to talk to, but kind of developing those new relationships with recruits and seeing if they can help our team be successful."

PM: On the other side, what's the most challenging part?

SP: "I think being a mom and a wife. There's a lot of head coaches at Mizzou, but there's not a lot of male spouses that have to deal with that other support factor. That part of it, the travel and the time away from family. Our boys are 12 and 10 now, but when they were probably six or seven, they would ask for me to get a real job. Get a job like Claire's dad. I'm like 'Claire's dad's a doctor.' Or like Claire's mom, a stay-at-home mom. Something like that. They just wanted me to be home. I was hoping they would get through that and kind of, 'Hey, your mom's a coach at Mizzou and this is a pretty big deal' and to be proud of me and to support me. You kind of want that validation. I try not to have a lot of mom guilt that moms talk about, but there's things that I miss for sure that I'm bummed out that I miss them, but I try to certainly get there for the big stuff. But I think that's probably the most challenging."

PM: Some of that gender dynamic I think has changed a lot, but how did that work with your husband? Was he doing most of the stuff that a lot of coaches say their wives are generally doing?

SP: "Well in the beginning, my parents were always in town. He had it made because Grammy--and (assistant coach) Mindy (Coyle)'s kind of in the same boat. Mindy has a three and a two-year old so Mindy, her parents are just an hour away. And her husband's a doctor so it's not like he has that luxury of kind of doing whatever he wants. He's in surgeries and things like that. So we're kind of a dynamic duo. When I was having our kids, she picked up the slack. So she's been having two babies in the last three years so I've really been picking up the slack. We've really helped each other out a ton. We've been together since basically 2001 too and I couldn't do it without her. She's part of all this as well. Us being able to do what we love to do and to be able to be a mom and have all of that is kind of a blessing."

PM: Most fans pay attention to some more high profile sports and the public on coaches in those sports is so visible and so public. Is it the same way in a sport that maybe doesn't get as much attention?

SP: "Yeah. I think you put it on yourself because you don't want to be a program that's not producing what other programs are doing. We've had a down spring for sure. We didn't make postseason. Maybe we're one or two programs out of all the programs that didn't do that. That's just with being competitive and having those pressures and I guess sometimes you just never know what's going to happen. You can't take it for granted that you're going to be here forever. The great Gary Pinkel told me that. There's not very many retirement parties, I think, that he had been to with all his buddies in football. He's like, 'Usually it retires you.' I think the leadership that we have right now and Jim Sterk's been great, the atmosphere, the all-staff meetings, the head coaches meetings, I think we're in a really good place with our leadership."

PM: You mentioned Gary and you've talked about Mike Anderson before. You've been here through a lot of coaches. Are there people that stick out that you've learned from?

SP: "You know, Mike Anderson still sends me happy birthday text messages and Mother's Day. He meant a lot to me. I don't remember specifically advice or anything like that, but he was just really kind and supportive. He would come out to our fundraiser. Coach Pinkel would come out to our fundraiser. Coach Martin has come out. I try to make it a point when we hire new coaches to get to know them, to reach out, maybe give them golf balls or a golf bag. Our sport, we have fundraisers or TSF events, the golf coach can do a lot of those. We can do those things for those coaches coming in, try to be helpful or supportive. Larissa Anderson, I think she's awesome. I text with her quite a bit. I love her Twitter. Larissa, I think she's great. We just got to know each other a little bit. I know she's been so busy, but she lives out here and I like to go on walks with her and chat with her and kind of pick her brain. I kind of feel like I do that just watching her interviews. I think that's what's cool about our job. When we get together as head coaches, there's a lot of good people in our department and they really do want everybody to be successful and share information."

PM: Specific to this job, are there any challenges that are unique to Missouri?

SP: "The biggest one that we get dinged on has been the weather...We've lost players, they won't even visit. When we get players to visit, we can get them to commit no problem. I think once they get here, the people sell it, we sell it and we are who we are once they're here. We let them know that. We try to talk to our players. We are who we are. There's not going to be a change in our personality. We're not going to go from being friendly and kind to the witch comes out. It's what you see is what you get. But that is probably the challenging part. We're the most northern school in the SEC, but it is still the SEC. And that's what's cool that we've gotten kids from Florida because they wanted to play in the SEC. Maybe they couldn't get into Florida or South Carolina or Auburn, something like that, so they can play in the SEC and play for us."