When the topic was brought up, Lindsay Shearer reacted surprisingly.

‘Oh really?’ the Kent State women’s basketball team’s starting forward said. ‘I didn’t know that.’

She wasn’t the only one. Golden Flashes head coach Bob Lindsay is 10 wins shy of becoming the Mid-American Conference’s first women’s coach to record 300 victories. But not many of his players are aware of it. So, in Shearer’s case, she isn’t surprised Lindsay will likely reach the milestone by season’s end, but perhaps surprised that it’s never been brought up.

‘He is more interested in the team,’ Kent State assistant coach Lori Badner said. ‘If it happens, it happens. To be honest with you, the team might not even know that it’s that close. It’s something he didn’t promote.’

On Saturday, Lindsay and the Golden Flashes attempt to get one step closer to the 300-win mark. Kent State meets Syracuse at Manley Field House at 1 p.m.

Reaching the plateau proves more than what the congratulatory applause will suggest. It points to how Lindsay took a substandard program and turned it into one of the MAC’s best, competing for a league title and earning NCAA Tournament berths 12 of the 15 seasons he’s been head coach.

Before 1989 – when Kent State hired him – the Massachusetts grad coached men’s lacrosse and was an assistant for the men’s basketball team at Holy Cross. A stint that allowed him to work with former Boston Celtics star Togo Palazzi as the head coach, the assistant coaching position turned into an opportunity that indirectly changed Kent State women’s basketball.

‘(Togo) asked me if I was interested in coaching women (at Holy Cross),’ Lindsay said. ‘I gave it a thought, and said, ‘Sure, why not?”

He became Holy Cross’ top assistant coach, and the Crusaders compiled a 103-42 record, including four 20-plus win seasons, and two berths in the NCAA Tournament.

After five years as an assistant, Lindsay became head coach at Kent State. Rather than clean house, install new ideas and use players in uncomfortable positions, Lindsay worked within the system.

At times, the Golden Flashes have pressed. At other times, they’ve been an offensive machine. At other times, they specialized on defense. Each year, he’s changed his team’s style to match the talents of his personnel.

‘There’s never a time in the game where he makes an adjustment that the kids don’t think will work,’ Badner said. ‘The team buys into what he’s trying to sell.’

Sure enough, the Golden Flashes now have the credibility to land national Division I-caliber recruits rather than the Division III athletes from before.

Melissa DeGrate, a senior guard, admits she initially was intimidated by Lindsay’s straight-shooting tactics. But she thinks his abrasive nature, as some take it, benefits in the long run.

‘You have to work very hard on the court,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t settle for anything less. He knows what his players can do. If he thinks you’re not playing to your capabilities, he’ll let you know right off the bat.

‘When I get to the gym, I am going to have to work hard. If I am having a bad day, I have to forget about it and pretend it doesn’t even exist.’

Lindsay doesn’t try to change players into something they’re not. He just sees skills a player does not yet possess.

‘I stress the ability to take the talent any particular player may have and make it better, refine it and teach them new and better skills,’ Lindsay said. ‘The thing we emphasize the most is when you walk in the door, you’ll be at a certain skill. Four years later, you’ll be a lot better when you walk through the door.’

For Shearer, it’s what she sees ahead that provides much appreciation for her coach.

‘He’s a big guy on making you ready for the real world,’ Shearer said. ‘Yeah, we play a sport, but that has implications with the real world. He’s going to help land me a job later on.’

For the short term, at least, the Golden Flashes (3-3) hope Lindsay helps them land a victory over the Orange.

Published on December 8, 2004 at 12:00 pm