Three Rivers College tapped into one of the brightest moments in the college's history when it selected the next coach of the Raiders men's basketball team.
TRC announced Monday it has hired Robert Kirby to be the fourth men's basketball coach in the program's history. He also is the first head men's basketball coach since 1970 who is not a member of the Bess family.
Kirby played at Three Rivers — and for Naismith Hall of Fame coach Gene Bess — from 1978-80 and was a member of the Raiders' first national championship team in 1979. He finished his playing career at Texas-Pan American, now known as Texas-Rio Grande Valley, before beginning a 40-year long coaching career.
Kirby said returning to his alma mater feels “great.”
“It's been really good for me to get back into the area that I'm very, very familiar with, the surrounding areas as well as the campus and the people there,” Kirby said.
Kirby coached at Kenesaw State University in Georgia this past season and has served as an assistant coach at the Division I level since 1985. He coached 16 years at Mississippi State (1989-93, 1998-2010), seven years at Georgetown (2010-12, 2017-22) — including five years on Naismith Hall of Famer Patrick Ewing's coaching staff with the Hoyas — and also has coached at Houston, Memphis, Ole Miss, Louisiana State, Arkansas-Little Rock and Southeastern Louisiana.
Kirby has coached several future NBA players at the Division I level, including Otto Porter Jr., a Scott County Central grad who just concluded an 11-year NBA career which included a championship in 2022 with the Golden State Warriors. Other NBA players Kirby has coached include Erick Dampier, Damon Jones, Jonathan Bender and Monta Ellis.
But his coaching philosophy was shaped by his two years playing for Bess at Three Rivers.
“As I got older, I understood that the life values that he was teaching us how to be productive young men after we (left),” Kirby said. “Not just playing basketball and winning game while we were there. ... We talked about the next 40 years of kids' lives, not just the next two.”
After winning 13 Region 16 titles from 1989-2010 and making eight trips to the national tournament in that stretch — including a national title in 1992 and runner-up finishes in 1994 and 2010 — Three Rivers has won just two Region 16 titles in the last 14 seasons, has not been to the national tournament since 2012 and has just two winning season since its last Region 16 title in 2017.
Kirby intends to lead the Raiders back to the top of Region 16 and back to perennial national contender status.
“We're accustomed to winning,” Kirby said. “Winning is at the forefront of my mind when it comes to the college — getting in there and working extremely hard to prepare a team and put together a team, a championship-caliber team.”
And Kirby intends to bring a Gene Bess-like philosophy to the Raiders.
“You've heard the expression 'chip off the old block?'” Kirby said. “With the things that Coach Bess instilled in us, every player that has come through here is about discipline, is about being on time for things that you do, being assertive and enthusiastic about what you do — and doing it in the right manner. It's about discipline and hard work — and the team is going to be put together with trust and love.”
When Kirby played at Three Rivers, the Raiders played their home games at Peters Gymnasium on the campus of what is now Poplar Bluff Middle School and practiced at Sears Youth Center north of Poplar Bluff.
When Kirby coaches his first game here next season, it will be at the Libla Family Sports Complex, one of the top junior college facilities in the nation which opened in 2020.
“The facilities are phenomenal — the buildings and the school are just so much more improved as to what we encountered when we went there as freshmen (in the late 1970s),” Kirby said. “But the change has been good. Time has been really good to the college, but in a good way. … Every sport has just blossomed.”
Last, but not least, Kirby is excited to be coming home after being away for 44 years.
“That's the big beautiful part about being there at Three Rivers and dealing with the people that are in Poplar Bluff,” Kirby said. “They love the college, they love the Raiders of every sport. You get a chance to take part of that genuineness, that love. It makes a difference — you feel it.”
Mike Buhler - Daily American Republic