McCRACKEN, Tom ~ Graceland's Hall of Fame

MCCRACKEN

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 8/26/2013 at 06:50:52

HALL of FAME

Tom McCracken
Graceland University, Lamoni, Iowa

Tom McCRACKEN attended Graceland College from 1960 to 1964, excelling in three sports during that time. Since his graduation, McCRACKEN has gone on to coach basketball in a successful career that has spanned four decades and every level of competition from high school to NCAA Division I.

McCRACKEN started every game in his basketball career with the Jackets, giving Graceland three years of exceptional play even after having to sit out his sophomore year with a heart condition. As a freshman, Tom averaged double figures in points scored and led the team in assists during a brilliant opening campaign. Coming back to the hardwood as a junior, McCRACKEN led the team in scoring, shooting percentage and free throw percentage and was selected to the All-Conference team of the Missouri College Athletic Union.

As a senior, Tom broke the single-season scoring record with 454 points, with an average of more than twenty points a game. For the rest of the season, McCRACKEN and fellow Hall of Famer Rich HARROP battled for the single-season record, and in the end it was Harrop who emerged with the record, having scored three more points than McCRACKEN. Once again, McCRACKEN was honored by selection to the MCAU All-Conference team.

Taking up tennis as a sophomore, McCRACKEN advanced as a junior into the number five singles and number two doubles positions. In the singles spot, Tom won numerous tournaments, and lost only one match in the season. He also managed the latter achievement in his senior season, lettering in tennis both years.

After graduating, McCRACKEN spent two years as head coach at Antilles High School in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Moving back to the mainland, Tom was head coach for the Emmetsburg, IA team during the 1967-68 season, winning Emmetsburg's only District championship in 20 years. Over the next four years, McCRACKEN was coach of the Camanche, Iowa team, going 70-16 and qualifying in 1970-71 for their first trip to the state tourney.

Returning to Graceland as a coach in 1979, Tom became the winningest basketball coach in school history in two years of coaching, and coached them to their only outright conference championship as a 4-year institution. Over those two years, he compiled a 24-4 conference record and won the HAAC Coach of the Year award. After two years, Tom moved on to Southern Utah University. At Southern Utah, he compiled a home record of 36-2 and was selected the Coach of the Year after two RMAC championships and 20 consecutive wins. After going to the NCAA tourney with Utah in a three year stint and a four year stretch at Morningside College in Sioux City, IA, McCRACKEN spent six years at Southern Oregon.

After concluding his college coaching career, McCRACKEN was called back to action after a decade of retirement, the 35 year veteran took the Ashland (Oregon) High School girls to the state tournament, going undefeated at home and winning the conference coach of the year. McCRACKEN also coaches golf at Ashland High School.

Tom currently resides in Ashland, Oregon with his wife Bonnie of eighteen years. He has two children, Kirt and Krisanne.

Tom McCRACKEN was inducted into Graceland University's Hall of Fame in 2009.

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Ashland Daily Tidings
Ashland, Oregon
April 16, 2010, By Joe Zavala

Ashland Coaches McCracken, Crane step down

Grizzlies place fifth in state hoops the past two years under McCracken
Tom McCracken held out hope that he could change — skip a scouting trip, lighten up on the video sessions, maybe even tone down his fiery on-court demeanor.

But 37 years of coaching experience told him otherwise.

"I don't know how to do it any other way than 100 percent full speed," McCRACKEN said Thursday, hours after Ashland announced his resignation as head girls basketball coach. "I thought that I could just kick back a little bit more, but I can't do it. I'm not built that way."

McCRACKEN, 68, steps down after leading the Grizzlies to 43 wins, two Southern Sky Conference championships and two fifth-place state tournament trophies in two seasons. He replaced Steve Farley in the summer of 2008, taking over a program ripe with potential and accustomed to change after three coaching changes in as many years.

The school on Thursday also announced the resignation of head wrestling coach Joe Crane, who also was hired in the summer of 2008. According to the school's press release, Crane stepped down to focus on finishing his education.

A former men's coach at both the college and pro level, McCRACKEN came out of retirement to take over a Grizzlies team that featured two of the best players in program history — Brenna Heater and Allison Gida.

Soon after, Heater was ruled out for most of the season after undergoing ankle surgery, but that didn't stop Ashland from rolling through league play undefeated and advancing to the Class 5A state semifinals.

The Grizzlies did it again in 2009-10, settling for another fifth-place trophy after a heartbreaking loss to SSC rival Crater in the third-place game.

McCRACKEN told the Grizzlies of his decision in the locker room afterward.

"I wanted them to hear it from me before they read it in the paper," said McCRACKEN, who guided the Grizzlies to a 43-16 record, 24-0 in league play. "And the younger girls, they sobbed and sobbed. I thought one of them would give a little sigh of relief and say, 'Good, we don't have to put up with that anymore.'"

Instead, he said, the Grizzlies took both the loss and McCRACKEN'S decision hard.

"A lot of times when the season's over, they're really glad it's over," he said. "This team hated to see it end. They wanted to continue to go to practice and continue to be together as a group. Continue to bond, which they did. That means more to me than the success that we had. Some of these girls will be friends forever. I know that."

McCRACKEN was convinced to come out of retirement by Ashland principal Jeff Schlecht, who at first asked McCracken for recommendations before finally asking him to take the job.

After the 2008-09 season, McCRACKEN wasn't sure if he would stay at AHS, but decided to stick around at least one more year. Part of his motivation centered around Gida, a senior, who is headed to the University of Utah on a basketball scholarship.

"I took it back again this year because I knew Allison had a future with the game as far as being a Division I athlete, and I felt like I could probably help her as much as anybody because I've been there," he said.

McRACKEN was considering returning for a third season at Ashland, but a blood pressure test made the decision easier for both him and his wife, Bonnie. Apparently, the stress of the job affected McCracken's health in a negative way. Still, he struggled to make it official. So his wife did it for him.

"She goes to Schlecht and says, 'Fire my husband because he's too dumb to quit,'" McCRACKEN said.

McCRACKEN was a standout basketball player at Graceland College in Iowa — the same school that produced Olympic gold medal decathlete Bruce Jenner — and in 2009 was inducted into the school's athletic Hall of Fame.

His coaching career has included stops in Puerto Rico, South Korea, Iowa, Colorado and Utah. Among the thousands of players he coached at the high school level was NBA All-Star Tom Chambers.

McCRACKEN moved across the country to take the men's head coaching position at Southern Oregon University in 1990. He stayed for six years, going 60-120.

After leaving SOU, McCRACKEN spent a year coaching a men's professional team in Pusan, South Korea. He returned to Oregon the following year, earned his certification to become an insurance agent, then realized that teaching and coaching were still his passions.

Not longer after, he accepted a position as a math teacher and girls coach at Eagle Point.

McCRACKEN, who constantly receives calls from former players, said he'll never forget his time coaching at Ashland.

"The last two years have been just a real joy for me," he said. "Even though I say I lose sleep and my blood pressure gets higher, last year's team, we just got a lot out of them, and for as much as we lost off (the 08-09) team ... these girls believed. They believed in me and they believed in the system. I've never had a group that was closer as a group than this team. It made it fun for me to coach."

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The Oregonian
Portland, Oregon
April 16, 2010, By Jerry Ulmer

Ashland's Tom McCracken steps down as girls basketball coach

Citing health reasons, Tom McCRACKEN has resigned as Ashland's girls basketball coach.

McCRACKEN -- who has coached men's teams at five colleges, most recently at Southern Oregon (1990-97), and a pro team in Korea (1998) -- came out of retirement to take the Ashland job in 2008.

The Grizzlies went 43-16, including 24-0 in the Class 5A Southern Sky Conference, and reached the state semifinals twice in two seasons under McCRACKEN.

The coach said his commitment to the job, though, began taking a toll on his health. He had a stroke three years ago and is on medication for high blood pressure.

"It's just not the best thing for my health, the way I go about coaching," he said. "I never learned how to do things scaled down. I'd spend half the night up watching game films, and my wife said I've got to learn not to do that kind of stuff."

Late in the season, McCRACKEN said, he began waking up with severe headaches. He began checking his blood pressure, at the urging of his wife, and discovered it was unusually high. After the final game of the state tournament, the coach told his players that he would resign.

"I couldn't have had a better two years," he said. "The parents have been phenomenal."

McCRACKEN said he originally agreed to coach the team for one season as a favor to Principal Jeff Schlecht, a personal friend. He decided to come back for a second season to help senior point guard Allison Gida, who has signed with Utah.

"I've been on the college level, and I knew what she needed to do to perform there," McCRACKEN said. "I felt like I could do more to help her than anybody could. I really considered coming back for another two years, because next year's team is going to be really young, mainly all juniors."

SOURCE: gujackets.com/f/Hall_of_Fame.php

Transciptions and Submission by Sharon R. Becker, August of 2013