Sept. 28, 2005
BY ERIC SODERSTROM GolfWeek Assistant Editor
The guy who last season coached the Missouri men's golf team to its first NCAA finals appearance in 19 years should right now be a high school gym teacher in New York.
Look up Mark Leroux (pronounced La-Rue) in the best-selling "Life Doesn't Always Turn Out the Way We Plan" encyclopedia, and you'll find a tale that begins about 19 years ago at a small New York state university and then heads cross-country from a land of hockey and lacrosse to California, back then a land of no hockey and no lacrosse and one life-changing Friday night beer league.
"I had decided I was going to be a PE teacher and a (high school) coach," said Leroux, a Binghamton, N.Y., native. He graduated from SUNY-Cortland in 1989 with a bachelor's degree in physical education and sights set solely on getting the master's degree necessary to gain employment in the New York public school system.
At that point, coaching golf seemed about as far-fetched to Leroux as playing it. Similarly, "Mizzou" may have just been something to which he responded "God bless you."
But nowadays, he couldn't feel more blessed to be coaching a Big 12 team that he took in his first season from No. 90 in the Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings to a final ranking of 55th last season.
"You know what, not only do I love this, I could do this forever," he said, recalling the moment he realized he'd found his dream job. He'd applied to every college coaching position possible, and Austin Peay was the first school to give him a shot.
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When Leroux graduated and left New York for grad school at Cal St.-Fullerton, he didn't realize that when he got to the Golden State he wouldn't have "a game."
"I'd been a lacrosse player and a hockey player my whole life," he said. "I get out to Southern California and now I don't have a game. And you know as a PE teacher, everyone seems to have their little niche, everybody kind of has their game."
Here's to finding one at the Friday night beer league, which Leroux first started playing in with his buddies at the local golf course. He'd never played golf before, but quickly proved that he was one of those people that so many other golfers hate: a quick learner.
"As a grad student I had some classes at night, taught some mornings, and had a lot of time during the day," said Leroux, who filled in the gaps with golf. "All of a sudden I'm playing golf and getting better every week, going to the league and taking everybody's money."
Unfortunately, it wasn't enough cash to fund his new hobby so he took up a job at a golf course, first as a cart guy, then range guy, then marshall and eventually worked his way into the pro shop. A seemingly severe case of the golf bug then willed Leroux into becoming an assistant PGA club professional.
But that didn't last. The "taking tee times and folding shirts and listening to the members" soon started to take its toll and Leroux began to focus all his attention on this question: "What can I do in golf that I'll love to do?"
"And then it hits me. 'Hey, I can be a PGA member and a college golf coach...' " he said. "And everything seemed to just come together."
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The first time Leroux sat down to look at his newly-acquired Missouri roster last year, he wasn't impressed.
"I mean, I thought they were awful," he said. "I went through their scoring averages from a year or two ago and I felt like their best kid couldn't have played fifth on our team at Austin Peay."
But Leroux could afford to make such judgments, considering that during his seven-year stint at Austin Peay in Tennessee he had taken a unimpressive Governors team and led them to three consecutive NCAA Regional appearances and Ohio Valley Conference championships from 2001-03.
"I went right out and recruited three more freshman to come in (at Missouri)," he said, "because I didn't think we had anyone who could play."
Fortunately, he was wrong. He had kids who could play. They just weren't getting along.
"In the past I don't think the team's got on very well," said Ben Scott, a senior from Lancashire, England. "When I first got here, people didn't want to go to practice and now they do. People didn't want to hang out with each other and now they do. It's just a completely different thing."
Somehow, Leroux - who Scott affectionately calls a "loudmouth" - injected a passion and fire that brought his players ogether. His enthusiasm for his new job and the Missouri program helped everything fall into place, and a lot quicker than he thought.
"I felt like I had every reason in the world to succeed here, if I can't get it done here, it's my fault," he said. "I felt like I was coming in here being given every tool I can imagine, and I'm gonna get done ... We're gonna get it done."
After a rough fall, Leroux's Tigers suddenly clicked in April, winning the Belmont Invitational and Purdue's Boilermaker Invitational in consecutive weeks. Missouri hadn't won a spring tournament since 1995, and the team's confidence was gushing. Behind routine starters Scott, Shawn Jasper, Chris Mabry and John Kelly - all returnees this season - Missouri went on to finish third at the Big 12 Championships, sixth at the NCAA Central Regional and on to their first NCAA finals since 1986.
"I think that we all started bonding together and kind of playing for each other rather than ourselves," Scott said. "He kind of influences the bond because he's kind of like all of our best friends so he's easy to get along with and he makes the trips a lot easier. It probably just took us a while to get used to his personality and things."
Personality?
"He's just one of us, kind of immature I guess."
Which, for the rest of the teams in college golf, seems to be a growing problem.
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Eric Soderstrom is a Golfweek assistant editor. To reach him e-mail
esoderstrom@golfweek.com>.