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Greg Kampe is among
the top coaches in the Mid-Con with 68 conference wins. |
After 23 years as the men’s head basketball coach at
Oakland University, there is not much that Greg Kampe has not achieved
with the Golden Grizzlies. His name is synonymous with Oakland basketball;
entering the 2006-07 season only nine other Division I coaches were with
their school longer than Kampe. At the beginning of his career he molded
Oakland into one of the top teams in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate
Athletics Conference before successfully guiding the program in its
transition from Division II to Division I play. After just nine years in
Division I, Kampe has already posted three seasons with 17 or more
victories, been named the national Coach of the Year, won a regular season
Mid-Continent title, a Mid-Con Tournament title and the school’s
first-ever bid to the NCAA Tournament.
With an overall record of 379-287, Kampe is among the top-50 active
Division I coaches in terms of wins. Only five times in his career has his
team finished its conference season with a sub-.500 record, with his
squads finishing .500 or better in conference play in a string of 15
straight conference seasons.
Last season was Oakland’s most successful in the Division I era as Kampe
led the Golden Grizzlies to a school record 19 wins in a 19-14 campaign.
He took a team that was picked to finish fifth and led it to a 10-4,
second-place Mid-Con finish as well as taking the squad to the Mid-Con
championship game for the second time in three years to earn his second
conference Coach of the Year selection.
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Kampe led Oakland
to its first Mid-Con Tournament title and NCAA Tournament appearance
in the school's seventh year as a DI program. |
Perhaps the 2004-05 season was the most memorable in
Kampe’s long career. After starting the season 0-7 against a schedule that
was rated as the nation’s toughest to that point, Kampe saw his team
rebound to finish tied for fifth in the Mid-Con standings. From there the
season turned magical as the Golden Grizzlies stunned the Mid-Con by
sweeping through the tournament, capping off the run on a last-second
three-point shot that propelled OU into the NCAA Tournament. There, in
front of a national television audience, the Golden Grizzlies upended
Alabama A&M in the opening round before falling to eventual national
champion North Carolina in the first round.
Under Kampe the Golden Grizzlies enjoyed 12 straight winning seasons from
1986-1998 after only posting one winning campaign in the previous 12. Six
of those winning seasons ended with at least 20 wins. Oakland finished in
the top four in the GLIAC and had a .500 or better league record in each
of the final 11 years, something no other league school had done. OU’s
GLIAC record prior to Kampe’s arrival was 37-92.
The 1993-94 campaign saw Oakland earn a first-ever berth in the NCAA
Division II Basketball Tournament, and post a school-record 21 wins, one
of 28 different school records tied or broken by the team. In 1994-95
Oakland made its second straight appearance in the NCAA Tournament in
another record-breaking season. OU posted another 20 victories and its
highest national ranking ever, that of seventh.
In 1996-97, the Golden Grizzlies set the school record with 24 wins,
surpassing the previous record of 21 victories held by the 1995-96 and
1993-94 squads. Kampe’s .774 winning percentage in 1996-97 is the highest
in Oakland history. OU also made its fourth straight NCAA Division II
Tournament appearance.
In his first 14 years Kampe brought his OU teams to the top, establishing
the team as one of the best in the GLIAC, winning two conference titles in
the final years in the GLIAC and making it all the way to the DII Sweet 16
in 1997 before being eliminated by eventual national champion Northern
Kentucky.
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Following the 1999-00
season Kampe was named the national Coach of the Year by College Hoops
Insider magazine. |
The 1997-98 season marked the first of the two-year
transition for Oakland from NCAA Division II to Division I athletics, and
OU came up with a solid 15-12 mark as a Division II independent, including
notching Kampe’s 250th career victory.
The 1998-99 season was the final for Oakland as a transitional Division I
school and the Golden Grizzlies finished at 12-15 overall. The 12
victories were against a schedule that was tabbed during the year as the
toughest in the nation by Jeff Sagarin of the Sagarin Ratings (USA Today).
The first win of the season was at Illinois State (72-71) and has been
said to be the biggest win in the history of Oakland basketball. Although
Oakland wasn’t eligible for the Mid-Continent Conference race, the Golden
Grizzlies competed in a full Mid-Con schedule and finished 8-8 overall,
which would have been good for fifth place.
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Greg Kampe was
named the co-Mid-Con Coach of the Year by CollegeInsider.com for the
2002-03 season. |
Following the 1999-00 season, Kampe was recognized for
his accomplishments when he was named the NCAA Division I National Coach
of the Year by College Hoops Insider magazine. This honor came after
Oakland, in its first year eligible, won the Mid-Continent Conference
regular season title with an 11-5 record. The squad’s 13-17 overall record
was highlighted by the 60-41 victory over Big Ten opponent Northwestern.
The Golden Grizzlies then added another Big 10 school to its list of
victims at the start of the 2000-01 season when they knocked off Michigan
at home in front of a sellout crowd.
The 2001-02 season proved to be valuable for the Grizzlies as the team
edged its way one step closer to making it into the NCAA Tournament with a
DI record 17 victories. Big wins included Detroit, Western Michigan, and
Western Illinois, which helped the Grizzlies finish tied for second in the
Mid-Con. However, the Grizzlies fell short of their goal to win the
conference title in their first year of eligibility for the conference
tournament with a loss in the quarterfinals against IUPUI, to whom the
Grizzlies had beaten twice during regular season play.
Oakland posted its second straight 17-win season in 2002-03, claiming wins
over every Mid-Con school but Valparaiso and finishing tied for second in
the conference standings. Despite a first-round loss to Southern Utah at
the Mid-Con Tournament, Oakland swept the Mid-Con awards at the end of the
season, with Mike Helms being named the Player of the Year and Rawle
Marshall the Newcomer of the Year, as the Golden Grizzlies established
themselves as one of the league’s top programs after just five short
seasons.
OU’s success under Kampe is not just limited to the hardwood. The OU
program has been outstanding in the classroom, something the coach takes
great pride in. The Golden Grizzlies had a player on the Academic All-GLIAC
team every year of Kampe’s tenure, including a league record six players
in 1995-96 and five players in 1994-95 and 1993-94. In 1989-90 guard Brian
Gregory, now the head coach at Dayton, earned an NCAA Post-Graduate
Scholarship and third-team GTE CoSIDA Academic All-America honors. Gregory
is one of four Golden Grizzlies to be honored nationally for his academic
and athletic prowess.
“We have a quality program that turns out talented student-athletes,”
Kampe said. “We try to do things the right way with good people who
receive a good education and then go out into the world and have success
after basketball. That’s what our mission is.”
Kampe came to OU from a program that has a long history of combining
athletic and academic excellence. The Golden Grizzly coach spent six years
as an assistant coach at the University of Toledo before coming to OU.
During Kampe’s six years at Toledo, the Rockets captured three
Mid-American Conference (MAC) basketball championships and compiled a
117-57 overall record. The school earned two NCAA tournament bids and one
to the NIT. Academically, 91 percent of Toledo’s basketball players earned
bachelor’s degrees during Kampe’s tenure, with 33 percent of those
continuing to earn graduate degrees.
Kampe is a 1978 graduate of Bowling Green State University with a
bachelor’s degree in business and journalism. He started his coaching
career as a graduate assistant at Toledo before accepting the full-time
assistant coach’s position in 1979. He earned a Master of Arts degree in
physical education while at Toledo.
Kampe personally combined excellence as an athlete and in the classroom in
college. He is the only athlete in MAC history to earn first team
all-Academic honors in both football and basketball. He earned dean’s list
honors with a 3.40 grade point average at BGSU, and received the
President’s Award as an outstanding senior student.
His late father, Kurt, was a guard on the University of Michigan’s 1947
Rose Bowl and national championship football team, which went 10-0.
Brother Kurt Kampe III, was a two-year letterwinner for the Wolverines in
1974 and 1975 as a defensive back.
