Aurora University's longtime men's basketball coach James Lancaster announced today that he will be hanging up his whistle, effective immediately.
 
"The time has come for me to step away and turn the program over to a young, energetic person like I was 30 years ago," said Lancaster. "It has been a great ride coaching basketball at AU. I will miss all the relationships I've built over the years but look forward to the added time for my family and future challenges."
 
Lancaster steps down after 30 seasons as a men's and women's coach at AU. He spent his first four seasons (1986-1990) as a men's assistant coach under Don Holler, who he would eventually replace as head coach. In the 1990-1991 season he stepped over to the AU women's basketball bench and led the Spartans for four seasons to a 58-42 record which included a 22-5 record in 1993-1994 and an appearance in the NCAA Tournament.
 
"James Lancaster sets the standard for excellence in coaching," said Aurora University President Rebecca Sherrick. "Like many others in the Aurora University family, I am grateful for his dedication and leadership in our athletic program.  Now I look forward to working with James as he assumes his new duties as Assistant Vice President for Enrollment." 
 
Following the 1993-1994 success as the women's coach, Lancaster moved over to the Spartan men's basketball bench for his first of 22 seasons as the men's coach. In 22 seasons as the head coach of the AU men, Lancaster amassed an AU record 404 wins with 188 losses for a .682 win percentage. The wins and win percentage put Lancaster among the best all-time in NCAA Division III history.
 
"When you think about the number of lives that James has positively influenced and the number of successful young men and women that he's helped develop, the 400-plus wins almost become an afterthought. James has been the definition of Spartan basketball for nearly 30 years and his success on and off the court is nearly unrivaled in intercollegiate athletics during that time," said AU Director of Athletics Jim Hamad. "Undoubtedly, it will be different when James is not on the bench when the Spartans start their season in a few months, but because the program has his imprint the team will still be prepared to succeed well into the future. James is the consummate coach, mentor, colleague and friend, and we are fortunate that he will remain at AU in an administrative role."
 
In 22 seasons, Lancaster led the AU men to nine NCAA Division III appearances with 10 conference championships and a record of 232-76. Lancaster has been honored 10 times as a Conference Coach of the Year by his peers. Seventeen of the 32 members of the AU men's basketball 1,000-point club were achieved under his leadership.
 
Coach Lancaster recently sat down to talk about his impending retirement from coaching basketball.
 
Q: Favorite memory or memories in your time coaching?
A: They just flood in; I don't know how you can rank one above the other. Certainly the win down in Texas in the national tournament was a big win and cutting down some of the nets in Thornton and being able to celebrate with our fans and the people that work at the University all getting to be a part of those things.
 
Also, the relationships with all the players, so many players run through my mind and I've heard from a lot of them recently. I heard from a bunch of them on Father's Day, just like I do every year. All those memories kind of roll in, I think the farther you get away I'm sure some memories will stick out more than others.
 
The thing I'm most proud of is that we never had a four-year player (four years as the women's coach and my 22 as the men's coach) that didn't get to play in the national tournament. Each one of them got to experience a special season, or seasons, during their career here.  That they got to represent the University in the national tournament is something I will remember.   
 
Q: What will you miss about coaching?
A: The competition. People close to me understand how competitive I am — I get that from my father. So how am I going to be able to compete? I can't golf year-round up here. So I will miss the competition.
 
Also, the challenge of taking a collection of individuals and getting them to buy in to a common goal, pull in the same direction, identify their strengths and weaknesses, strengthen their weakness and play to their strengths, and just the whole team building thing. There's still competition in admissions, it's just not on the court. But the competition, game night, there's nothing more special. I love anything that they keep score at and has someone trying to win. I'll miss working with the assistant coaches and all of us pulling the same direction. It's just a great feeling about being a part of a team. 
 
Q: What will stepping away from coaching allow you to do in the winter months?
A: When you're coaching you get wrapped up in the winning and the losing and that part of it. Sometimes you lose sight that you're coaching and you're mentoring and doing those things. This year our season ended a weekend earlier than we thought it might and my 12-year-old daughter had a basketball tournament with her travel basketball team the next weekend. Her coach was going to be out of town. He asked if anyone wanted to take the team and I said, yes.
 
So, I got to coach them all day and it was a joy. It was like, oh, you found your roots. They just called up recently and asked me if I would be able interested in helping coach this year. Stuff like that is certainly not nearly as time consuming as a collegiate basketball program. So, I will be coaching my daughter's team in the winter and hopefully that will get me through to golfing weather.  
 
Q: When you started coaching 30 years ago, did you envision yourself coaching this long and having the huge success you have had?
A: That's funny. I replaced Coach Holler, a very good friend of mine. I visited him yesterday in the nursing home and was talking about this with him. He told me there are no more lifers in coaching. I think he said that to challenge me, to see if I could do it my whole life. I guess if I was going to prove him wrong I could. I knew when I started that I wanted to be a coach for a long time. Then when you get into that position, it's everything that you thought it would be. You're fortunate to be at a place like AU where you can have success. I loved everything about it. I would say that for the last couple years I got a sense that there was going to come a time when a decision would be made. With the time and energy and passion that it takes to give the program what it needs, I wasn't able to do that as much with my family and my job at admissions, so something had to give. I love Aurora University basketball so much, but the right decision for the program was for me to step away at this time and give a young guy who has the fire and hunger that I had 30 years ago take it and run with it. I remember the first year with the women's program. I was frustrated with taking over a team that was 2-22 and won eight or whatever games that first year. Coach Holler said, "Did you think you were going to win just because you wanted to?" I was like, yeah, I actually did. But I think what coaching is, is finding ways to improve everything you do. I remember Mark Walsh giving me some advice when I first got the head job. He was a legendary baseball coach here at AU. What he told me was to do something every single day to make your program better, whether that was calling a recruit, drawing up a play, having a meeting with your assistant coach, developing a weight training program or whatever, just make sure you do something every single day. So, yeah, over 30 years, if you're getting better every day, you better have some success here. It was also an eye-opener to understand that a coach is just in the middle of a program. You need the players and a supportive infrastructure and then you need the support above you. If you remember the tartan floor we had and how our gym looked and the bleachers that we had and all those different things that come into it. Now we travel across the country to play, and we're playing Division I opponents. We have state-of-the-art facilities in Thornton Gymnasium. All that plays into it, it really takes a village to run a good program. The coach is just part of the equation and you can't do it by yourself. You are going to be very frustrated if you do try to do it by yourself. It is better to be in an organization where everyone is pulling in the same direction and wants you to be successful. We definitely had that here at AU.  
 
Q: Since you started coaching, what has changed about the coaching profession?
A: The kids are the same age but we have gotten older, so our perspective has changed a little bit. Take communication, for example, how you communicate with the kids. I remember talking to younger coaches and the one piece of advice I'd give them was to be adaptable, because kids are not necessarily going to adapt to you. The "It's my way or the highway" approach really doesn't work anymore with these kids. These days, you have to text kids rather than have a conversation -- even when you are on the same bus with them. But that's the way they are comfortable communicating now. We involve the parents a little bit more than we used to because they are so much a part of the kids' lives nowadays. They've traveled to and seen all their kids' games. You want to make sure they're comfortable entrusting their kids to you. I don't want to date myself, but we didn't have three-pointers when I started. So that's changed. But coaching's coaching, and I believe kids don't care what you know about the game until they know how much you care about them. That's the main thing I want my players to understand: how much I really cared about them off the court. The easiest part of what we did was play basketball.
 
Q: As you transition out of coaching and into solely an administrative role, what are you looking forward to?
A: I really haven't thought about it yet. I don't think I'm going to actually have that much more time. Everyone knows how much I love Aurora University, so I think my hours are going to be the same spent on the campus here. I've got daughters going to school here and others wanting to come here, so I'm going to be around AU a lot. Maybe enjoying watching basketball a little bit more than working it. That was one of the things I loved about recruiting:  You are reminded about how great the game is when you are able to just watch it, when you aren't invested in having to win the game. Just sitting back and enjoying not grinding day after day after day, and hopefully that opens up some avenues for some great friendships. And family time, maybe sitting with them at a ball game and doing those family things. I don't know, so much of my life is AU. The other thing I'm going to miss is the friendship of the other coaches. We are all friends because we all understand what we each go through. We never felt we were competing against each other as much as we are teaching life lessons through the game of basketball. Those are the guys that I think get it. It's not us against them; it's about trying to teach kids. I'm going to miss that with them, but I'm sure I'll get out to some games and see them, and the phone calls have been great. I'm sure I'll see them on the golf course.