Former TAMIU head men’s basketball coach Shane Rinner (in white) was one of more mercurial and successful coaches I’ve covered in my seven years as a sports journalist. Here he is talking with me (in black) along with star guard Ryan McLucas after winning the program’s first conference tournament championship in 2011.
(Since 2009, I covered Shane Rinner’s stint as head coach of the Texas A&M International men’s basketball team. I was the beat writer for the program – and was from June 2007 through January 2012 – and recently learned of him leaving the program last week for a job in California. As one of the more mercurial and successful figures I’ve had the joy of reporting on in my career, here is my recollection of Rinner’s tenure in Laredo, Texas).
One of South Texas’ most brilliant and calculating basketball minds resigned last week to head to California for a better gig. But what Laredo’s Texas A&M International men’s basketball program lost in head coach Shane Rinner was not only a man who revived what had been a scandalous doormat of an athletic institution, but an individual presided upon ethics who embraced right from wrong and expected his staff and players to follow suit.
As complex as Rinner, who will be the first assistant head women’s basketball coach at Fresno State, may seem, he’s actually not. The fiery, no-holds-barred tornado that whirled the sidelines in the “Gateway City’s” north side is actually, in essence, an affable, thoughtful, considerate human being without a selfish bone in his body. All the evidence necessary is the reason why he took the Fresno State gig, and that was to get his wife Amanda, a Cali native and Fresno State alum, back home to be with her family, knowing that’s what she’s wanted all along. That was priority No. 1: do what’s right by his family.
See, there’s Shane Rinner, the coach, and there’s Shane Rinner, the person. It’s important to learn how to differentiate between the two.
In a brief but substantially rewarding three years at the helm of the Dustdevils, Rinner – who accepted what appeared to be a career death sentence in 2009 when he accepted the position following a cheating scandal the prior spring in which the program had six players who cheated on a spanish exam, resulting in the NCAA stripping the program of all wins in 2008-09 and putting it on probation for following seasons – led TAMIU to its first NCAA conference tournament postseason appearance in his first year and earning two consecutive conference championships in his next two seasons. He won a school-record 21 games in each the 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons, and in 2010-11 he guided the program on an epic run toward the NCAA Division II tournament, where the Dustdevils fell to No. 1 seed and site host Central Oklahoma by nine points in overtime in the first round. In his three years at TAMIU, Rinner’s Dustdevils won 54 games. In his final campaign last year, he earned the conference’s Coach of the Year honor and helped Evan Matteson (his first recruit to TAMIU) nab MVP.
It was easy to assume that basketball is all Rinner eats, sleeps and drinks. It’s true that his work ethic is legendary. It’s also true that he is incredibly meticulous on all matters in his program, nothing was void of his fingerprints, and is the definition of “hands-on,” from the style of marketing posters made for the team to the way a player closes out on a potential shooter. But there is certainly a method to his perceived madness, and if you can say one thing about Rinner it’s that it’s blatantly clear that he cares way too much. That goes for any waters he dips his toes into. If he pleads his allegiance, it will be done, and it will be done right.
But basketball is not the end-all, be-all with Rinner. In a sit-down chat right after a heated practice before the start of the 2011-12 season last winter, I found out a few cool things about a leader who is as multi-faceted as he is demanding. Rinner actually does not necessarily aspire to be a head coach at a prominent Division I university. He’d be perfectly fine as an assistant coach at a mid-major DI. He boasts other interests, vastly different from his current vocation. He loves politics. He’s been known to sit in on campaigns and craves that kind of stuff, even going as far as tinkering with the idea of running for office back home in Alaska.
He also likes fundraising. Loves it, in fact. In previous conversations, he has mentioned how he doesn’t necessarily have to coach and he would still be happy in college athletics. He’s talked about his passion for building a program. He also joked that he would like the lifestyle involved in fundraising, which is “little more than playing golf and going out to dinners.” He has a passion for helping others, for building, for structure. It’s a cliche, but Shane Rinner is all about the journey, all about being immersed in the process.
While I was taken aback a bit at the sudden nature of Rinner’s departure for Fresno State last week, I was far from totally surprised. His move not only achieved the goal of getting his wife closer to her family and back home, but also opened the door for former player, longtime associate head coach and dear friend Bryan Weakley to run his own program and keep TAMIU afloat all at the same time. It was a no-brainer for Rinner. It was a calculated move. It was an unselfish move. No one loses. Everyone wins.
It’s the end result to a past three years that have been hellaciously tiring and emotional. It’s why Rinner busted his tail in otherwise deplorable circumstances.
Consider:
– The Dustdevils are one of three Heartland Conference teams not fully funded. TAMIU, in the 2011-12 conference championship season, played with 5.2 scholarships. The rest of the 5.9 went to redshirts. TAMIU played with 5.8 schollys this year, 6.8 total.
– In the Heartland Conference, Laredo is considered the second-least desirable attraction other than Oklahoma’s Panhandle State. The program is also second-worst in scholarship allotment, also behind OPSU, and TAMIU has the fewest number of students on campus (approximately 600). The next fewest is 1,600 in Odessa at Texas-Permian Basin.
– Any increase in Rinner’s budget has come from his own fundraising, which is approximately $2,000 in his three years. That money helped for upgrades in the men’s locker room as well as the women’, due to Title IX. He was the program’s chief fundraiser and drove the initiatives, finding little support from department administrators.
The only plus of being in the situation in Laredo, Rinner told me, is how bad it was before he got there. It was a program mired in scandal and mediocrity; a program of apathy and a revolving door of head coaches, philosophies and principles. For a first-time head coach, it was also a beneficial one. Anything and everything Rinner and his staff would be able to accomplish in Laredo would be seen as the next great thing, simply because the program had never escaped the depths of college basketball purgatory. Had Rinner failed, it would have been thought of as nothing. But if he succeeded – he would be seen by university leaders as nothing less than a savior. It was win-win. Low risk, high reward. Much like his move to leave TAMIU, interestingly enough.
Give Shane Rinner this: No move goes unplanned. He’s always thinking 2-3 steps ahead, on and off the court. He is a throwback to the old age of coaches who demanded excellence on the court, off it and in the classroom. The plus is that TAMIU won’t skip a beat with Weakley. Weakley shares Rinner’s thrill for helping student-athletes succeed, in the classroom first before on the court. And while I have no doubt the Dustdevils – who graduated eight seniors and are in an ideal rebuilding situation with a motivated, hungry teacher like Weakley running the show – will maintain the program’s integrity and growth initiated three years ago, it’s important to take a moment and understand what Rinner truly accomplished, coming to Laredo like a dark knight from his home of Alaska, willing to put his career on the line and sacrificing for the greater good of the university.
And now that sacrifice has been rewarded, for the greater good of his family.
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