At NMSU, Tony Samuel is the coach that got away

Just days after winning the Eddie Robinson Award as the FCS coach of the year, Tony Samuel was a hot topic in New Mexico.

Not as a potential coach, but as the coach who got away.

Samuel was fired after serving as New Mexico State's football coach from 1997 to 2004. His team went 5-6 in 2004, and the school decided to not renew his contract. He landed at Southeast, where his team set school records in its 9-3 season in 2010. He won the Eddie Robinson Award earlier this month.

A story last week in the Las Cruces Sun-News asks a popular question these days at NMSU: Did the Aggies let Samuel go too soon?

Consider: New Mexico State has struggled since Samuel left, even after hiring well-traveled coach Hal Mumme as Samuel's replacement. Mumme went 11-38 before he was fired after the 2008 season, and the Aggies have gone 5-20 since.

As one fan told the Sun-News: "You don't fire a coach with five wins (in his final season) at New Mexico State. You carry him off on your shoulders."

Click here to read the full article.

Samuel, by the way, is under contract for just two more weeks at Southeast. His current deal expires Jan. 31, and the school has not announced an extension.

Southeast Missouri loses one of its racing legends

One of the most well-known families in Southeast Missouri short-track racing has lost its patriarch.

Troy "Durell" Fowler, a longtime competitor at some of the region's earliest oval dirt tracks and whose sons later carried on the racing tradition, died Sunday at Pemiscot Memorial Hospital in Hayti. He was 79.

Mr. Fowler was among the region's pioneers of the sport at a grassroots level, drawing fans to once-thriving oval tracks, including those in Charleston and Cape Girardeau's Arena Park.

He passed on his passion for the sport to sons Gene, James and Paul, who introduced the Fowler name to new fans — and added dozens of wins to the family legacy — at newer tracks in Benton, Caruthersville and Sikeston.

Mr. Fowler is survived by his wife Helen, his daughter Deborah, and his sons Gene, James, Paul and Stephen, all of Portageville.

Visitation is from 6-8:30 p.m. Tuesday at DeLisle Funeral Home in Portageville. Services are at 2 p.m. Wednesday at First Assembly of God Church.

If you're Tony Samuel, what do you do now?

Get inside Tony Samuel's mind just for a minute.

Your football team recently set school records for its 9-3 finish. You've finally gotten the attention of a football-loving community after four seasons of frustration. Top it off with the biggest award of your career — the Eddie Robinson Award as the nation's top coach in the FCS.

And now you've got until Jan. 31 to decide whether to sign a new contract with Southeast or head back into the big leagues.

If you're Samuel, the choice could be one of the biggest in your life.

Samuel knows that as a coach, a career isn't built on the empty promises for tomorrow, but instead on what you've done lately. And if Samuel wants to land back in college's major level — he was, after all, once a head coach at New Mexico State and an assistant at Purdue — now's the time. His resume looks sharp on the heels of a 9-3 season, especially at a program that's seen more failures than successes since it moved up from Division II in 1991.

Samuel's other option: Sign a new deal with Southeast by Jan. 31, risk a return to mediocrity next season when Southeast loses much of its talent to graduation, then watch his mid-major college value all but disappear.

Publicly, Samuel has had no offers to take or accept. But head coaching vacancies abound, and at major colleges coast to coast, newly hired head coaches are advertising several very appealing assistant jobs right now.

For a coach with no ties to Southeast Missouri and whose heart has always been at the major-college level, Samuel's decision to not come back for Year No. 6 would surprise no one.

Southeast, welcome back to the coaching carousel.

How's this for a quick rematch? It's just the start in a packed week

DeSoto and Farmington barely had time to change their calendars before they had to start thinking about a quick boys basketball rematch.

The same teams that played to a one-point finish in Friday's Central Christmas Tournament championship will play again Monday (Jan. 3), this time at DeSoto. It's one of a few high-intensity games that help kick off basketball in 2011.

After Monday's showdown, another pair of teams with big Christmas tournament runs — Bernie and Twin Rivers — face off Tuesday.

Two days later, Dexter — coming off a 3-1 run through the Bloomfield Christmas Tournament — gets its second shot this season at district opponent Notre Dame.

And on Friday, a pair of Top 25 showdowns pit Sikeston against Charleston and Kennett against Poplar Bluff.

Toss in a few local rivalries and small-school showdowns, and the unofficial start to the second half of basketball season is off to a fast start. Check back all week for the latest scores and updates.

Going to a Christmas tournament? There are 14 to pick from

You won't have to look far to find several potentially classic high school basketball matchups over the next few days.

Between Dec. 27 and Dec. 31, dozens of high school teams from across Southeast Missouri will travel in every direction as part of 10 boys tournaments and four girls tournaments. The road will lead local teams to Tennessee (Dyersburg), Illinois (Carbondale) and multiple sites in Missouri, from Affton to Cabool to Cape Girardeau to Rolla.

To make it a little easier to sort it all out, we've compiled an extensive schedule of every tournament involving teams from the 23-county Southeast Missouri region at this link.

Besides the 16-team fields at Bloomfield, Cabool, Cape Girardeau and Park Hills Central, events at St. Dominic (featuring Sikeston) and Dyersburg (featuring Caruthersville) could produce interesting results. The same goes for the tournament at Rolla, where Festus and Salem are part of a tough eight-team field.

And as always, SemoSportsWeb.com will be the area's only source for daily scores from all 14 events. Links to the latest boys scores latest girls scores are here and near the top of our home page.

Got a score to pass along? Send a text from your phone to (573) 979-5929 right after the game, and you'll be entered into our weekly drawing for a SemoSportsWeb.com T-shirt.

Get ready, Sikeston. Here comes another shot at Warrenton

A date for Sikeston fans to write down: Monday, Dec. 27.

You've been granted another shot at Warrenton.

Sikeston will play Warrenton in the first round of the St. Dominic/Imo's Christmas Tournament at St. Dominic High School in O'Fallon. The bracket was released Wednesday morning.

The two are part of the eight-team tournament that runs Dec. 27-28-29. It's Sikeston's first appearance in the event, while Warrenton returns from previous seasons. Sikeston will be heavily favored as the tournament's No. 2 seed (behind Holt); Warrenton is the seventh seed among eight.

In case you missed football season, here's why a Sikeston-Warrenton matchup might rile Bulldogs fans: Sikeston led underdog Warrenton much of the way in their Class 4 football semifinal game in November, then gave up two late touchdowns and lost 28-21. It was the second straight year Sikeston was stopped a game short of the state championship appearance.

Click here to see the full schedule of that tournament and others involving local teams over the Christmas break.

Everything you wanted to know about local basketball history

As a big fan of local basketball history, it was a treat to get the ball rolling on the first-ever timeline of Southeast Missouri basketball. And after several weeks of work, it's done — at least for now.

A project like this one will remain a work in progress, but take a look at the extensive list of Southeast Missouri basketball milestones so far — it includes key events in local basketball, a lot of names, and a lot of records (and eventually photos, too).

Southeast Missouri teams holds dozens of state basketball records, but only a few are on our list so far. That could change as time goes on.

As for other big events, some have undoubtedly been overlooked, so let me know. E-mail me at jhall@semosportsweb.com and let me know a key event that should be on the list.