SPRINGFIELD — Missouri State University joins the local community in mourning the loss of Bears basketball legend Bill Thomas, who passed away on Saturday, April 15.
Services for Thomas will be finalized in the coming days through Gorman-Scharpf Funeral Home in Springfield. He was 91 years old.
Thomas’ legacy on the Springfield campus shaped the landscape of Bears’ basketball for nearly three decades as a player, assistant coach and ultimately as head coach of the Bears for three trips to the NCAA Division II championship game. He became the head coach of the Bears in 1964 when long-time coach Eddie Matthews passed away. Over the next 16 seasons, the Buffalo, Mo., native directed Missouri State to eight MIAA basketball titles, more than any other coach in league history.
The Bears won or tied for the conference championship five straight years from 1966 to 1970 and finished second in the NCAA Division II National Tournament in 1967, 1969 and 1974.
Thomas compiled a 16-year coaching mark of 265 wins and 158 losses, twice was honored as NABC District Coach of the Year and in 1974 was named the College Division National Coach of the Year by the NABC.
As a player, Thomas was a three-year starter after he came to Springfield in 1950 as a transfer from Westminster College. With Thomas at guard, the 1951 Bears were the MIAA conference runners-up and went on to win league titles the next two seasons. Both of those Bears clubs cruised through the NAIA district playoffs and then conquered a grueling five-game endurance test to win back-to-back NAIA national championships in 1952 and 1953.
Thomas was a two-time all-conference selection and gained NAIA All-America honors in 1953.
He returned to Missouri State as an assistant coach in 1956 under Matthews and was on the coaching staff in 1959 when the Bears finished as an NCAA Division II national runner-up.
In 2015, Thomas became the sixth — and most-recent — men’s basketball representative to have a jersey retired in his honor at Missouri State, joining fellow coach Charlie Spoonhour and former players Winston Garland (1985-87), Daryel Garrison (1971-75), Jerry Anderson (1951-55) and Curtis Perry (1966-70). Thomas has also been inducted into the Missouri State Athletics Hall of Fame (1980), Missouri Sports Hall of Fame (1990) and Missouri Valley Conference Hall of Fame (2016).
