PATRICK SCHMIEDT Star-Tribune staff writer | Posted: Monday, January 12, 2009 12:00 am
Blame Tony Selph's success on his bad heart.
The whole reason he's coaching is because of the heart attack he had at age 29.
It's hard to believe the coach that has led his teams to four Wyoming state championships in five years is in it for the money.
To hear Selph tell it, though, it is hard to doubt him.
In his previous career as a self-employed entrepreneur, Selph found out insurance companies don't like to give heart attack victims good deals on health insurance. So he turned to the education system to protect his pocketbook, then just happened to stumble into all those trips to the first-place podium.
"It was a big deal for me to have health insurance," Selph said. " … I'm not a die-hard basketball guy. I'm really not. I could leave it in a minute."
He's left coaching before, and he may again when the time is right.
But the over-simplistic explanation Selph gives now is only a small sliver of why the Lander boys basketball coach is into coaching at all - and what makes his teams so successful.
An annual script
By now, the rest of the state has the routine memorized.
Selph's teams characteristically underachieve during the regular season and characteristically overachieve at state.
Of Selph's four championship teams, three of them finished their season with at least 11 losses. Last year's Class 3A championship team from Lander barely even made it to the tournament, coming into state as the fourth seed from the East Regional.
In five years, though, Selph's teams are 14-1 at the state tournament.
"When it comes down to those big-game tournament times, he's a great motivator," Lander assistant coach Mike Noseep said. "He'll get these kids to run through walls.
"Some people would say it's magic. In those big games, his kids are going to play better."
Selph's teams thrive on discipline, effort and loyalty, and his assistant coaches are no exception.
Noseep, recruited to the bench by Selph during his first year at St. Stephens, has never been paid, yet stuck with Selph through all four years at St. Stephens and followed him to Lander - even after St. Stephens offered Noseep the head coaching job after Selph left in 2007.
"Within two seconds I turned them down, said I was going with (Tony)," Noseep said.
Non-linear path to success
Selph's ambitions have bounced around more than a loose basketball on uneven blacktop.
A native of tiny Winifred, Mont., Selph spent his first five years after college as a computer consultant. But after Selph's mother died when he was 25, he moved back home to take care of his younger sisters.
While there, he took night classes to earn his education degree and his teaching and coaching certifications.
Selph and his then-wife moved to California in 1993, where he picked up his first head coaching job, leading the girls basketball team at San Bernardino High School - a program with no real history or tradition where Selph cut his coaching chops. Within three years, he led San Bernardino to the top of its league and to a CIF title, the California equivalent of a state championship.
In 1996, Selph moved to Wyoming to take over his family's restaurant and bingo parlor business.
And coaching? "I really thought I was retired," Selph said.
But soon after moving to Wyoming, his struggles with health insurance started. Unable to find a financially viable way to stay insured, he joined the staff at St. Stephens as a physical education teacher and athletic director in 2002.
He wasn't going to coach, he told himself.
But after some personnel shuffling left the Eagles without a boys basketball coach heading into the 2003-04 season, Selph stepped in to take the reins.
The rest is a well-documented championship extravaganza.
In Selph's first season at St. Stephens, the Eagles started 3-14 and had only won eight total games heading into the Class 1A state tournament, but pulled off three consecutive victories and won the school's first championship in 44 years. Then, in 2005, the Eagles repeated as champions, and after finishing second in 2006, St. Stephens won the title again in 2007.
But making the half-hour one-way daily commute from Lander to St. Stephens began to take its toll on Selph, so when the head coaching job in Lander opened up after the 2007 season, Selph applied for it.
His success with the Eagles was a key reason he was hired at Lander. And the job also gave Selph an opportunity to spend more time with his 11-year-old son, Austin.
Leaving St. Stephens was hard, Selph admits.
"Once you're there, you're blood, and they don't want you to ever leave," he said.
Even so, the magic carried over to the Tigers, who pulled off the "Selph Surprise" again. After finishing the regular season at 16-11 and gaining the fourth seed from the East Regional, the Tigers won two overtime games in the first two rounds before topping Newcastle 49-44 in the title game.
The secret
Selph said it's a simple strategy that leads to success in March:
"You've just got to make sure that all 12 guys are happy, and that's the biggest thing," he said. " … When you have guys really working hard at the end of the season, it's because they're happy."
Therein rests the secret to Selph's success: Happiness is critical.
That's why Selph quit the restaurant business. That's why he left St. Stephens and took the coaching job in Lander. That's why, even after a heart attack and a divorce and several career changes, he can look at his situation now and smile.
His players feel it, Noseep said.
"The kids, when they get down to that level, they will sell out for him," Noseep said.
Because the type of dedication Selph gives his players in return can't come from someone who is only in it for the money.
Contact high school sports coordinator Patrick Schmiedt at (307) 266-0615 or patrick.schmiedt@trib.com.
Selph in Wyoming
Here is a brief look at Tony Selph's head coaching career in Wyoming:
Year Team Record Finish
2004 St. Stephens 11-17 state champions
2005 St. Stephens 16-11 state champions
2006 St. Stephens 17-13 state runners-up
2007 St. Stephens 24-7 state champions
2008 Lander 19-11 state champions
Hardwood reflections
This winter, the Star-Tribune will be taking a closer look at the players, coaches and teams that helped shape Wyoming high school basketball. Stories will run every Monday; this story is the second in the series.