Bob McKinley grew up playing basketball here in Bowie back in the 1950s, and he was part of that tradition-rich decade of success.
McKinley said his coach Bobby Brashear helped him develop his love of basketball, and that has translated into a long fruitful career as the athletic director and head women’s hoop coach at Weatherford College.
This summer, McKinley will be inducted into the National Junior College Athletic Association Women’s Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame. He will be feted at a banquet on July 24 in Niceville, Fla.
“It’s a tremendous honor to be selected after 38 years here at Weatherford College,” McKinley said in a telephone interview with me on Wednesday afternoon.
McKinley will be joined in the Hall by fellow inductees Ricky Gene Ford from Northeast Mississippi and Denny Jerome from former NJCAA member Waldorf (Iowa).
Bob’s record speaks for itself.
McKinley has amassed more than 870 victories and entered the 2014-15 campaign as the winningest active coach in the entire NJCAA. He’s third on the all-time wins list.
While a schoolboy at Bowie, he helped the Jackrabbits make state as a junior before falling to Buna. That team featured the likes of James Thompson, Jerry Cantwell, Tommy Powers and Orville Welch.
Brashear’s Bowie teams had a “culture of winning,” and that precedent has followed McKinley wherever he’s been as a coach.
“Coach Brashear did a lot of things other coaches weren’t doing (at the time),” McKinley said.
Bowie was known for its stifling press defense, and that’s one of the cornerstones of how Weatherford College has played since McKinley arrived on campus in 1977.
What else did McKinley learn from Brashear?
“Discipline,” he said. “It’s very important to let the players know how you feel about them and believe in them. Then you can get just about anything out of them.”
Once he graduated from Bowie, McKinley played for three seasons at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, where he met his wife, Delores. He served as Horned Frogs’ team captain. Read more of this column in the weekend News.

Weatherford College head women’s basketball coach and athletic director Bob McKinley, a Bowie native. (Courtesy photo from Weatherford College) 

Editor’s Note: The Storm Center column is the expressed written views of sports editor Eric Viccaro and not The Bowie News.