SPRINGFIELD – Greenwood Laboratory School is proud to announce Jay Osborne as its new boys basketball coach. He succeeds retiring longtime head coach Darren Taylor.
Osborne most recently served as head basketball coach and assistant athletic director at Springfield Catholic High School in Springfield, Missouri, for three years. Prior to Catholic, he was the head basketball coach at Nixa High School in Nixa, Missouri, for 30 years. He will begin his 39th year in education as an administrator, teacher and basketball coach.
Osborne expressed his enthusiasm about joining Greenwood. “It’s a tremendous privilege to be chosen to fulfill these responsibilities at Greenwood,” he said. “This is one of the best basketball jobs in the state, and to be mentioned in thesame conversation with coaches Larry Atwood, Mark Fisher and Darren Taylor is truly an honor. I’m excited to get started.
“I would also like to thank the Catholic community for three great years. The basketball players and teams I was able to coach were outstanding. I’ll forever be thankful for my time there.”
In February 2022, Osborne was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame. He was awarded the 2022 Missouri State High School Activities Association Basketball Coach of the Year and was named the National Federation of State High School Associations’ Midwest Region Coach of the Year. In April 2015, the Missouri Basketball Coaches Association inducted Osborne into its Hall of Fame.
Osborne has an impressive career record of 728-272, averaging over 20 wins per season with a .728 winning percentage. His teams have won 14 district championships, competed in four Final Fours and claimed 49 tournament titles, including 13 National Invitation Tournament titles and seven Blue and Gold Championships. His 1999 Nixa team won the Missouri 3A state championship, with his 2002 team placing third, and his 2012 team finishing as the Class 5 state runner-up with a 30-2 record. His 2022 team finished 28-4 and was the Class 6 state runner-up. This past season, he coached his 1,000th game as a head basketball coach.
Osborne is the all-time winningest coach (80-29) in the 77-year history of the Greenwood Blue and Gold Tournament. From 2010-14, his Nixa teams won an unprecedented five consecutive Blue and Gold titles. He has twice received the State Coach of the Year award in 2012 and 1999. His Nixa teams competed in the Bass Pro Shop Tournament of Champions five times, including 2013, when Nixa played nationally top-ranked Montverde Academy in a nationally televised game.
Prior to his position at Nixa, he compiled a 51-7 record in two seasons at Pleasant Hope, Missouri, including a 1990 Blue and Gold championship and a 1992 state quarterfinal appearance. His first head coaching job was at Solomon, Kansas, in 1989-90, guiding that team to its first winning season in over 10 years and a conference championship. He began his career as an assistant for two seasons under hall of fame basketball coach Brent Colley in Willow Springs, Missouri.
“Coach Osborne knows how to win and brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the boys basketball program. We look forward to the energy he will bring,” said Dr. Ron Snodgrass, director of Greenwood.
In 2001, Osborne founded the Nixa Summer Shootout, hosting high school and junior high teams from across the Midwest for team competition. The event started with just 14 teams and has grown to over 160 teams across four separate shootouts. Osborne oversees all aspects, including scheduling more than 400 games using up to seven gyms, and hiring over 100 referees, score table personnel and supervisors.
He served on the MSHSAA Basketball Advisory board from 2008-11. While on the board, he drafted the basketball pre-season scrimmage proposal that MSHSAA currently uses for multiple sports. He was the lead architect of the proposal that member schools adopted in 2012.
Osborne received his master’s in education administration in 2004 from Lindenwood University. He earned undergraduate degrees from Fort Hays State University in 1987 and Hutchinson Community College in 1984.
A native of Nickerson, Kansas, he was a four-sport athlete at Nickerson High School. He played basketball for his father, Duane Osborne, with their 1981 team finishing third in the 4A state tournament. He was twice selected as an all-state football player and twice as an all-conference basketball player. He went on to play four years of college football as a wide receiver at the junior college and National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics levels.
He is married to Kimberly Osborne. They have three adult children and four grandchildren.
