Payne Is Only Active DI Men's Head Basketball Coach To Serve As Head Coach On All Levels Of Men's College Hoops
9/2/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Sept. 2, 2008
Spartanburg, S.C. - USC Upstate head men's basketball coach Eddie Payne is used to having received his fair share of accolades in a coaching career that dates back to his days as an assistant coach in 1975. Payne, however, has reached a singular achievement as the only active NCAA Division I men's basketball head coach to serves as a head coach on all five levels of men's collegiate basketball, serving as head coach on the NCAA Division I, II and III levels, as well as in the ranks of the NAIA and Junior College.
Research was conducted by the Upstate Assistant Athletic Director for Media Relations Bill English and the media relations office by sending out a mass e-mail through Eric Moyer, Director of Communications at the Atlantic Sun Conference. The e-mail generated responses by media relations personnel from conference offices and sports information/media relations directors from colleges and universities. In addition, the Web sites of each of the other 340 Division I schools were researched to determine the head coaching background of each Division I head coach.
Upon completion of the research, Payne can now claim to be the only active NCAA Division I head coach to coach at all five levels of college basketball. Currently, three NCAA Division I head coaches have served as head coaches at four of the five levels of college basketball. Michigan's John Belein and Central Arkansas' Rand Chappell have each served as head coaches in NCAA Division I and II, NAIA and the JUCO ranks, but have not been a head coach on the NCAA Division III level. UC Santa Barbara's Bob Williams has been a head coach at all three NCAA divisions (I, II and III) as well as in the JUCO ranks, but has not been a head coach in the NAIA.
"I don't know that being the only one (to be a head coach at every level of college basketball) is necessarily a big thing, I think it basically says I have had a lot of experience at all of the different levels and it has turned out to be a good thing," said Payne. "All of the stops have been unique experiences."
Payne believes the addition of several additional positions within Division I basketball programs has had an effect on seeing coaches with the diverse background of being a head coach at all levels of college basketball.
"There are more positions available in Division I programs nowadays whether they are third assistants, video coordinators, director of operations, assistant to the head coach, all of these variations," said Payne. "You find more guys getting in at those basic levels with limited skill sets. They stay in the programs and are able to move up from those spots. In the past, you had to go to other places, there weren't as many jobs available and you had to take different avenues to get to the Division I level. But, I think those avenues turned out to be more instructive and educational and may have been better preparation for a Division I job."
Prior to this season, Payne was joined on the list of coaches who have coached at all five levels of college basketball by New Jersey Institute of Technolgy head coach Jim Casciano. After an 0-29 season in 2007-08, however, Casciano resigned his position as head coach at NJIT and is currently not a head coach on the NCAA Division I level.
After serving as an assistant coach at Clemson from 1975-78, Payne got his first collegiate head coaching job when he was 26 years old, taking the head position at Truett-McConnell College in 1978. Truett-McConnell was, and still is, a two-year institution playing in the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA). Payne recorded a mark of 25-5 in 1978-79 in his only year coaching on the JUCO level.
Payne left Truett-McConnell to serve as an assistant coach for two seasons at East Carolina from 1979-81 before receiving his second head coaching job at Belmont Abbey in 1981. Though currently playing on the NCAA Division II level, Belmont Abbey participated as a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) when Payne took over at the helm of the program. In five years as the Crusaders' head coach, he tallied a 103-51 record, a mark that would soon put him on the fast track to NCAA Division I coaching positions.
Payne resigned his position at Belmont Abbey to return to the ranks as an assistant coach under George Felton at South Carolina in 1986. He remained with the Gamecock program as an assistant until 1991 when he was asked to return to NCAA Division I East Carolina as the head coach. He took his third head coaching position at the helm of the Pirates' program in 1991 and turned a stagnant ECU program into a winner. His final ECU squad finished the 1994-95 season with an 18-11 record, a CAA Tournament championship and an appearance in the NCAA Tournament. He won 33 games in his final two seasons at ECU and finished his stint with the Pirates with a 56-58 overall record.
His success at East Carolina opened the door for Payne to move across the country to take a head coaching position in the Pac 10 at Oregon State in 1995. In his fourth head coaching position, Payne recorded impressive wins over top-25 teams Stanford, UCLA and Arizona. After five years at Oregon State, Payne left Corvallis and headed back across the country to his native North Carolina to serve as the head coach and assistant athletic director at NCAA Division III Greensboro College in 2000.
Payne spent two seasons at Greensboro before accepting his sixth different head coaching position at USC Upstate in 2002. At the time, Upstate was a member of NCAA Division II and the Peach Belt Conference, completing Payne's journey as a head coach on all five levels of college basketball. In five years coaching on the DII level at Upstate, Payne tallied a 93-54 record with two Peach Belt Conference championships (one regular season and one tournament) and back-to-back appearances in the NCAA Division II Tournament in 2003-04 and 2004-05.
Upstate moved its athletics program to the NCAA Division I level as members of the Atlantic Sun Conference in 2007 and is in its second year competing as a Division I program. The Spartans finished the 2007-08 season with a 7-23 record. Upstate claimed the program's first-ever win over an NCAA Division I opponent with a thrilling 58-56 victory at SMU in Dallas on Dec. 18 and played in eight states, including Alaska, and five time zones to play its 30-game schedule last year.
Upstate opens the 2008-09 season, Payne's 23rd as a head coach, on Nov. 14 at Georgia and will play another daunting non-conference schedule in addition to its grueling 20-game A-Sun slate of games. In addition to Georgia, the Spartans will play non-conference foes Gonzaga, South Carolina, Boston College, Saint Louis, Duquesne, Fresno State, Southern and either Liberty or Northern Colorado. In all, Upstate will travel to 10 states and three time zones to play its schedule in 2008-09.
