Q&A with Harry Meeks, retiring VU women’s basketball coach and athletics director
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In April, Harry Meeks, women’s basketball coach and athletic director at Vincennes University, announced his retirement after 33 years at Indiana’s oldest college. In May, Ingrida Hartsfield was named as the interim women’s basketball coach. The university continues to search for a new athletic director.
Meeks has been the women’s basketball coach since 1991 and athletic director since 2010. The 82-year-old’s legacy includes a 750-283 record with the women’s basketball team, making him the most successful basketball coach in VU history. He was inducted into the National Junior College Athletic Association Women’s Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2020.
Meeks spoke with Inside INdiana Business about his VU career and life after basketball. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Tell me about your time as the women’s basketball coach at Vincennes University.
I came here in 1991. I’ve been the head women’s basketball coach until my retirement. I had previously worked at the University of Cincinnati, Virginia Tech and Western Carolina University. I taught in Alabama and intended to stay there, but I decided to come here and coach. I had some good friends here: Jason Holmes and Dan Sparks. And when I visited here for the women’s job, I liked it here. And I continue to like Vincennes.
I was looking for a place to raise my family. Both of my daughters graduated from VU. Both of them are engineers: one in the computer field and the other one is a mechanical engineer. Molly, the oldest, works for Duke Energy, and she works in a nuclear plant. Melanie works for the state of Indiana and works out of Indianapolis.
I’m so pleased to have been able to stay in one place as long as I have because that was a big part of raising my family. I enjoy being around people. That’s why I like this setting. And I like the basketball setting all the way around. I enjoy coaching the women. They’re easy to coach. You can show them something, and you don’t have to show it to them 53 times.
I’ve been very fortunate to take eleven teams to the national finals. I never did win one, but I took three good teams to Kansas, ranked one or two in the country. And all three times I had [anterior cruciate ligament] tears in the first or second game. The last time it happened, my assistant coach said, “We don’t need to come here.”
Women’s basketball is having a moment with the popularity of Caitlin Clark at the University of Iowa and now the Indiana Fever. How do you feel about that?
I’ve said for the last 10 or 12 years, at the college level, [women’s basketball] is the best basketball played in this country. It’s played below the rim. It rewards not so much jumping but working on your shooting and your defense and doing a group of things to be successful. I just kept waiting for something to come along big to elevate it, and that’s happened with Caitlin Clark. She’s a joy to watch, and I would catch as many Big Ten games with her in it as possible.
Tell me about your athletic director role at VU.
I’ve had a good time being the athletic director. I have especially enjoyed working with the people in the NJCAA national office, which is now in Charlotte, North Carolina.
I have friends that work there, and you can imagine over 30 years and the people coming through there, I’ve had people help me with things that I needed to be more up to speed on. And the NJCAA has stepped up every time, or I wouldn’t be here, because that particular group has a lot of power within the institution. The people who run each event and all the things that go along with that have been amazing.
How did you balance women’s basketball and being the athletic director for the past 14 years?
It was not a bad job simply because most of the people who are working here now and were working here back 10-12 years ago were people who I hired. People who worked with me, people who helped me. Todd Franklin, who’s the men’s basketball coach, I hired Todd. The president told me, “Get me someone who can win the national championship.” I got him Todd Franklin, and we won the national championship two years ago.
So it’s been a joy working with people. Our track program is doing great. We have a great bowling program, and we have nine programs, and they’re all rolling along pretty smoothly.
What’s changed about sports at VU over the years?
The support for the women’s team here is good. We’ve been supported by two or three different presidents. Our budgets have gone up, and our equipment budgets have gone up. They’ve done a good job of taking care of these basketball teams, the baseball teams and track. This is a class organization here, and I’m pleased to have been a part of that.
What challenges have you faced with VU sports?
The biggest challenge I had when I first became the athletic director here was we didn’t have a lot of money in the program. In the ensuing years, we worked our way around, we did a good job and we worked hard.
We had a vice president here who passed away a few years ago, Phil Rath. He saw the value of it. His daughter played for me. She was an all-American player. They were able to see the value of athletics, especially with women’s basketball and women’s volleyball.
Men’s basketball wagged the dog around here for a lot of years. They won a bunch of national championships, and they deserved everything they earned. But our other sports trailed a little bit. And now they seem to have been picked up with an infusion of money into the programs that’s helped us, especially with recruiting.
What are you most proud of in your career?
That we were a winning program. My goal was to come to Indiana—I moved here from Scottsboro, Alabama—and fit in. The greatest basketball in the United States is played here. If you’re good in Indiana, you’re going to fit in with the rest of the group.
I wanted to be successful. I had the goal of winning 20 games every year, and we’ve done that a good number of times. Take care of the girls and have them graduate. That’s one of the most important things is graduating from here. It’s one of the things that’s pushed in athletics is to be accountable for your athletes, for their education. That’s one of the things that all the coaches harp on and stay on their players.
I’m really pleased with the girls who played for me. Once or twice a week, I get phone calls from former players.
Many of your players have gone on to play for NCAA Division I schools. What do you think of that?
The selling point about that is we have put a lot of young ladies into major college basketball. I’ve had four or five young ladies that played at [Indiana University]. They’ve played all over the Big Ten and some Division II and Division III schools. I believe we’ve had two young ladies this year who’ve signed with four-year institutions.
And that’s the big thing. You keep your academics going, you keep your ability to play basketball in another institution for two years. That’s one of the things we push to have done. If you miss a class, I know about it before you get back to your room. We have a system called the [Tracking Attendance and Performance of Students] system. It helps the coaches keep up with their players.
We’ve also had regular study halls throughout the years, and it’s something you have to attend and something you have to participate in as a player.
How does it feel to be the most successful basketball coach in VU’s history?
It feels good. Looking back at it, it feels really good because it’s 750 wins. That’s a good number. I had a goal of winning 800 games, but I got to the point where I thought maybe this should be it, and this is it.
You waited until you were 82 years old to retire. Why now?
I was introduced to the world through monster truck racing. My little grandson is into monster trucks and the world of dinosaurs. So I am moving to the world of monster trucks and dinosaurs. His name is Walter, and he’s awakened me to other things besides basketball. I dearly love basketball, or I would not have been in it this long. But I feel I’m in a good spot, and I feel good about my decision.
What are your other retirement plans?
I have three grandsons, ages four and five. I’ve got Lincoln, who’s named after me. I’ve got Walter, who’s named after his grandfather and I’ve got Sadler.
Anything else you’d like to add?
There have been great coaches here. The men’s program for years has been top of the line. I came here and worked for Dan Sparks, who’s a Hall of Fame coach. That was another thing that verified I was a good coach, when they put me in the Hall of Fame in 2020. I’m proud of that, and I’m proud to have 750 wins here because that means a great deal to me, and I’m pretty sure it means a lot to this university.