Coach -- and teacher -- Gene Bess wins No. 1,200

Three Rivers College coach Gene Bess, center, yells to his players during a game Monday, Jan. 5, 2015, in Poplar Bluff, Mo. Bess earned his 1,199th win in the game, a 65-53 win against Lincoln Trail (Ill.) College. At left is assistant coach Brian Bess while players Jemeereo Spain and Jake Coddington, right, watch the action. (DAILY AMERICAN REPUBLIC/Scott Borkgren)

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. -- The winningest coach in college basketball history has been splitting his time for 45 years.

The gym is decorated with half of Three Rivers coach Gene Bess' resume. Two national championship banners, 17 national tournament banners, 21 Region XVI titles and 30 conference championships. Bess has never had a losing season and become the first coach to earn 1,200 wins when the Raiders beat State Fair Community College 91-51 Thursday night in Sedalia.

The other half of his time and resume is spent in the classroom teaching, a common requirement for coaches at high schools and lower level colleges.

Bess currently teaches three classes; History and Principles of Physical Education, Basketball Coaching Techniques, and Lifetime Wellness.

"About 50 percent of my job is teaching and I end up spending a lot of time preparing and going to class," Bess said. "I feel like I owe it to the students to give them their allotted minutes in the classroom according to the amount of time they are supposed to have.

"It's just the way I was raised, I guess. You want to give your employer their money's worth. In my situation, I believe the students are first and a good education is key to what success they are going to have in life."

Lifetime Wellness, in particular, is a class that is always evolving with the latest science and health trends.

When Bess was a post-Depression child growing up a on a Midwest farm, he thought coconuts were healthy. Tarzan ate coconuts and Tarzan was big and strong.

Food had a different significance then. The biggest issue was just getting enough of it.

"You kill two, three, four hogs every winter and you lived on that. You just kind of survived," Bess said. "You always had potatoes and beans. But it was probably a healthier time than we are in right now."

In time, he found out coconuts were high in saturated fat, so he started telling people it wasn't good for them.

"Now, it's back and is one of the best oils going because it is a good cooking medium," Bess said.

Coffee evolved as well. Bess used to think it was a necessary evil of the morning routine. Now it seems that a few cups a day can help prevent Type II diabetes.

"I call food an inexact science because one person's food is another person's poison," Bess said. "One person can thrive on wheat products and another person gets sick on them."

The class tends to bleed into the court. Bess was an early believer that proper nutrition was important for his players. A science has evolved, so have team meals.

Bess the teacher is not very different from Bess the coach. His detailed preparation and desire to get a lot done in the allotted window of time he has is consistent.

"As soon as he walks in, he's getting started writing stuff on the board and making sure you're learning and all of that," said forward Jamie Massey about Lifetime Wellness. "I definitely learned a lot. It was one of my harder classes, actually."

Freshman forward and History of Physical Education student Domonique Alexander agreed that the 100-level, coach taught, two hours per week classes are no easy A.

"You really had to remember everything," Alexander said.

The classes themselves are pretty straightforward, as well as Bess' teaching methods. Lifetime Wellness is largely a more detailed, more difficult version of a high school health class. The other two are designed for students interested in majoring or minoring in physical education, a typical career path for a player who wants to become a coach.

To date, at least 42 former players dating back to the 1971 national tournament team have taken that path.

Lennies McFerren retired with 547 wins coaching area high schools as did Paul Hale who won 573. Danny Farmer, the head coach at Charleston High School, has over 600 win.

Bess will have his first chance at his 1,200th win against former Raider Kevin Thomas, now at State Fair.

"Most of my players have majors in business or something that is a little more lucrative," Bess said. "It's interesting, after they've gone through sports programs, they end up getting out and decide they don't want to leave their sport and they end up being coaches after the fact."

Bess knew he wanted to pursue teaching back in the fifth or sixth grade. He admired his elementary school teachers, all women at the time. Beyond the profession, they also earned a monthly salary, a valuable thing to a farm kid in the 1940s.

"The more I went through school, the more I wanted to play ball. When there was nothing there from that situation, I wanted to stay with it. I wanted to coach worse than I wanted to teach," Bess said.

After college, Bess taught high school math and P.E. while coaching at Lesterville and Oran. There was a brief time when he taught fifth-grade math.

"I remember having about 30 little kids. One of the most exciting teaching experiences I've ever had," Bess said. "They were well behaved and they were all very alert. I think every kid in there thought they could be president of the United States of America. It was just refreshing to see a bunch of little kids like that interact and want to do well."

At the college level, Bess often has trouble getting players to realize academics is the most important thing. He stresses it, but too many freshmen come in with unrealistic aspirations of playing pro ball.

Latrell Sprewell, who is still the school's all-time leading scorer after leaving in 1990, played 13 season in the NBA while a handful of other former Raiders went on to play overseas.

"Sooner or later," Bess said, "they are going to have to rely on their education."