In his lifetime, Jim Hagan has seen a lot of good basketball players from his days playing basketball at Neosho High School in the 1960s, to playing at Oklahoma Baptist in Shawnee and then through a coaching career that spanned five school districts.
When the 2009 basketball season concluded for the Springfield Kickapoo Chiefs, Hagan started a second-term of retirement so to speak as he exited the coaching game with long-time friend Roy Green.
Hagan has been associated with Kickapoo athletics for more than a quarter century, dating back to 1975. He stepped aside from teaching in 2004 after 38 years. At the prodding of Green, he came back to help out the Chiefs varsity program the last five years.
“In 2004, Roy asked me to do it and I told him I was retired,” Hagan recalled. “He just kept after me and I told him ‘I’ll stay as long as you want me to or until you retire.’”
Green did just that this year and Hagan also called it quits.
“I had a good experience,” Hagan said of coaching.
Hagan took some time to talk before going fishing at Stockton Lake Monday afternoon to recall some of the many greats in the game he has crossed path with, and he noted it all started back in Neosho.
“Neosho prepared me with a good basis for my entire life,” said the 1962 graduate of NHS. “I had an English teacher that made us right term papers and I learned how to do those before I went to college. I got to write quite a few term papers in college. Coach (Calvin) Lane and Bill Price both were quality people, good people, and they taught me a lot.”
Hagan was a talented three-sport athlete at Neosho in football, basketball and track.
He was an All-State football player and had a full-ride to play at the University of Arkansas.
A knee injury his senior year put a damper on those plans, and instead, the U of A asked Hagan to walk-on to the program instead.
His talent in basketball became a good fall-back plan and he took a full-ride offer to play basketball at Oklahoma Baptist, then an NAIA member school.
His junior year, the team went to Kansas City and finished as NAIA runners-up. The following year, Hagan was an All-American and the Bison were NAIA National Champions in 1966. That summer, he played on a USA Basketball traveling team and played 28 games around the world.
And when talking about the players in the NAIA then, Hagan brought up some impressive names, such as former Knicks great Willis Reed, former Bucks’ great Earl ‘The Pearl’ Monroe, and a guy named Robert ‘Bob’ Love. For those who are unaware of that name, he was the second player to have his number retired by the Bulls and is second in the team’s history for points scored, behind Michael Jordan.
Hagan also got to play with Al Tucker at OBU. Tucker was the first-ever draft pick by the Seattle SuperSonics and was on the national championship team with Hagan.
And to put even a little more NBA spin into Hagan’s life, he was coached by Bob Bass. Bass, after coaching OBU for 15 years, coached the San Antonio Spurs for two years and was an interim coach three times. Bass gained fame as the GM of the Spurs and the Charlotte/New Orleans Hornets.
Hagan had a chance to play against, and see, all of those players at the NAIA level.
After coming back and redshirting his fifth year of college, Hagan got to focus on academics and finish up enough schooling to be able to teach history, social science and physical education.
“I kind of knew when I was in high school that I wanted to coach after college,” Hagan said. “I had it in the back of my mind and I kept pursuing it. That’s what I ended up doing.”
Hagan had opportunities to play pro basketball after college, but he followed his calling into coaching and teaching.
His first job, back in 1967, was at Shawnee, Okla., High School and he assisted a coach by the name of Dennis Price. Price is the father of former NBA players Mark and Brent Price, who were only little kids at the time, Hagan noted.
He then went on to Owasso, Okla., to be a football coach. In 1972, he came back to Newton County and coached Seneca for three years as football, basketball and baseball coach.
He took Seneca to the state playoffs in basketball.
He then headed to Kickapoo in 1975 and never really left. He left for a few years to start up Carver Middle School in Springfield, a feeder school for Kickapoo, where he was the football and basketball coach.
He was a freshman football coach, and a basketball and track coach for the Chiefs.
Hagan recalled visiting Neosho for the first time in the late 1980s for basketball districts.
“I walked into the old gym and I thought about Coach (Bill) Price (his coach at Neosho). If we ever missed free throws he would make you run up and down the bleachers. I’ll tell you what, I got pretty good at free throws after a while.”
A few years ago he got another chance to come back home and was honored as one of the top 50 players in the Neosho High School history.
Now that is he is officially retired for the second time in his life, Hagan said his wife is wanting him to get another job.
“She wants me to, but I enjoy fishing and hunting,” he said. “Those are my hobbies. I am an hour away from all of these lakes. I’m getting ready to head up to Stockton (Lake) to fish today.”
Hagan and his wife, Nancy, have been married 42 years.
The two were high school sweethearts at Neosho.
The couple have two daughters, Cori and Jill, and six grandchildren.
