Heath Schroyer named new McNeese Cowboys basketball head coach

LAKE CHARLES – A new and exciting era of McNeese Basketball is upon us when on Thursday, Director of Athletics Bruce Hemphill announced the hiring of BYU Associate Head Coach Heath Schroyer to lead the Cowboys’ basketball program.



An introductory press conference will be held at noon on Monday in the End Zone Room, located on the second floor of the Jack V. Doland Field House. The public is invited to attend.



Schroyer, who has 20 years of Division I coaching experience including nine years as a Division I head coach, broke into the coaching ranks in 1996 at Fresno City College before being hired on a year later at BYU for his first stint with the Cougars. 



After spending four seasons at BYU (1997-2001) where he helped rebuild a team that won one game in 1996-97 to the Mountain West Conference regular season and tournament championships in 2000-01, he was an assistant coach at Wyoming (2001-02) where he helped guide the Cowboys to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the 1987-88 season.



Following his stint at Wyoming, Schroyer earned his his first head coaching job at Portland State from 2002-05 where he led the Vikings to 19 wins and the Big Sky Conference title in 2004-05 for the school’s first league title in any men’s sport.



He went on to become the associate head coach at Fresno State from 2005-07 and then back to Wyoming as head coach from 2007-11.



Schroyer was hired as an assistant coach at UNLV from 2011-14 where he was named one of the nation’s top 15 assistant coaches twice in three seasons. He helped UNLV land four McDonald’s All-Americans and two top 10 recruiting classes in three seasons.



He was named the head coach at UT-Martin in 2014 and guided the Skyhawks to back-to-back 20-win seasons and back-to-back appearances in the CIT.



While at UT-Martin, Schroyer was named the Tennessee Sports Writers Association Men’s Basketball Coach of the Year and was a finalist for mid-major Coach of the Year for the 2014-15 season.



He spent the 2016-17 season as the assistant head coach at North Carolina State and rejoined the BYU staff this past season where he has helped guide the Cougars to a 24-win season and an appearance in the NIT.

In addition, three of Schroyer’s assistants over the years are current Division I head coaches – Barrett Peery at Portland State, Dedrique Taylor at Cal State Fullerton, and Anthony Stewart at UT Martin.



His hire must be approved by the Louisiana Board of Supervisors, of which McNeese State.

ADDED 3/19
Transcript from Coach Heath Schroyer’s introductory press conference:

First of all, thank you. I want to thank Dr. Burckel, Bruce (Hemphill) and the committee members. I am honored and humbled to be standing here today as your new basketball coach.

There are some young men here. We got a chance to meet each other yesterday. One of the things that really attracted me to this position were the people, you guys sitting here (referring to the returning players). I think there are some great pieces here that we can build upon to do something special.

I’m a first generation college student. I am a son of a farmer. And I’m proud of those things. I’m proud of the fact of where I came from and of the things I’ve had to do. And I think that that has always allowed me to relate to the young men that I coach.

This is not Heath Schroyer’s program. This is the university’s program. This is Lake Charles community’s program. And I am humbled to lead it. But make no mistake, I will lead it. And I’m going to lead it with three characteristics every single day. One of them is great passion. We’re going to be passionate about what we do. And we’re going to have a clear vision about where we are, but where we’re going. And we’re going to have unwavering commitment to reach out goals.

If you have those three things then you can be successful in anything you do in life. But if you don’t have a clear vision, you’re not passionate about it and you don’t have an unwavering commitment, you’re not going to be very successful. We will have those.

A lot of people asked me throughout the process and even buddies of mine in the industry, “coach why McNeese?”

I believe there is so much untapped potential here. The people I’ve talked to that know this area. I can’t tell you the great things about the people of this community. How much they care about this university and care about this program. I could sense that through the committee, the questions they asked. I could sense that they’re passionate about this program.

Obviously the new building is something that is really attractive. I think there’s untapped potential here. I don’t think we’ve scratched the surface on what this program can do.

My vision for this program is really simple. And I obviously want to graduate these young men and produce quality people in this community. Good fathers, good husbands. People that understand how it is to go to work every day and better their lives for themselves and their children.

But I also envision us hanging banners in that gym. I envision a full house. I envision it’s the hottest ticket in town. I see students lining up around the block to get into the game. And I’ve said these things before and I’ve seen them happen. And that’s what I see here. I see greatness on the horizon. I told the young men yesterday in our first team meeting that my goal is to win right now. This group of people, this group of young men deserve that. We’re going to everything as we can as a staff, and for me personally as their head coach, to put them in a position to win next year. That is my goal.

This program is going places, in my opinion, its never been before. Achieving greatness on the floor, off the floor, in the community, in the classroom, that we haven’t experienced before. And to do that, the program we’re going to put together here is based on five pillars I believe in. We talked about this as a team yesterday.

The first thing is loyalty. We’re going to be loyal to something bigger than ourselves. We’re going to be loyal to our university, to our state, to our teammates.

Number two, we’re going to play with great passion. When people come watch Cowboy basketball, I want them going ‘my goodness they played hard. Man they get after it. They’re great teammates. They love to play’. Because that’s contagious.

We’re going to be unselfish. It’s a huge thing in this world to be unselfish. To care about something beside yourself; to care about each other as a team; to care about the university.

Fourth thing is we’re going to have great discipline within our program. We’re going to have discipline on how we look, how we act, how we talk to each other. Because you can’t have discipline on the floor and not have discipline off the floor in my opinion. We’re going to be a disciplined basketball team. We’re going to take great shots. We’re going to guard you. We’re going to value each possession on both sides of the ball.

The last thing we talked about as a team is we’re going to have a champions’ work ethic. Everyone talks about working hard but what does that mean. We’re going to work like a champion. We’re going to have a championship mentality in everything that we do. We talked about that as a team last night that how we carry ourselves, how we look, how we act, we need to carry ourselves like a champion.

I couldn’t tell you how excited I am to be here. I couldn’t tell you how excited my family is to be here. Again to my wife Kim, without question once you meet her, you’ll realize she’s the best recruit I’ve ever signed.

My son Hayden is my heart. I have a daughter, Sierra, that’s a junior at the University of Tennessee. To have my father here is something that’s really special to me. I lost my mom a couple years ago. So for my dad to make the trip here, it means more than you know.

Going forward, I will tell you again that I am humbled to be your coach. I am honored to be your coach. And this is your program. This is Lake Charles program. This is McNeese’s program. And I’m going to lead it and we’re going to go where everyone wants it to go. And I’m going to need all of your help. I need you to come to games. I need you to buy season tickets. I need you to tell your friends it’s a new day for Cowboy basketball. Give us a chance. Because when you watch the product we’re going to put on the floor, you’re not going to be disappointed. I’m not going to tell you that we’re going to get there tomorrow. I’m not going to sit here and say that it’s going to be easy, because it’s not. But I promise you, as my dad would say, just roll up your sleeves and get to work, and that’s what we’re about to do. And these guys are about to do that.

I’m going to put together an unbelievable staff. My goal is to have the best staff in the Southland Conference. The people that I’ve been talking to that want to come here is phenomenal because they believe in the vision that we’ve talked about. They believe in the vision of this program and the community here in Lake Charles.

And again, I am humbled and honored to be your coach. I can’t wait to get started.