Washburn head basketball coach Bob Chipman has announced that his 41st season and his 38th as head coach will be his final one on the Ichabod sidelines as he will retire at the end of the 2016-17 season. A press conference will be held on Wednesday, July 13, at 11 a.m. in the McPherson Booster Room overlooking Lee Arena.
“I am excited for the upcoming season with the team we have coming back and competing for a championship in my final season,” Chipman said. “We will have what I believe will be a really good team coming back this season and they will be a good group to go out with. The timing is right for me and my family for this season to be my last and I really can’t wait to get started when our team arrives in August.”
Chipman has been a mainstay on the Washburn sidelines since becoming an assistant coach for three seasons starting during the 1976-77 season and then was promoted to head coach for the start of the 1979-80 season. From that point on Chipman has led the Ichabods to unparalleled success with 788 wins during that stretch. He is the all-time winningest MIAA basketball coach in victories with 549 since the 1990-91 season when the Ichabods moved to the NCAA ranks.
“You think Washburn basketball and you think of Bob Chipman,” Washburn athletic director Loren Ferré said. “He has been a fixture on the Ichabod bench for 41 years and no one wants to win more than he does. I am looking forward to one more run from coach Chipman and the Ichabods in his quest for not only 800 wins, but to add another championship banner in the arena in his final season as our head coach.”
At Washburn he led the Ichabods to the 1987 NAIA National Championship in Kansas City as well as to 12 conference titles with 10 coming in the MIAA. He has also coached Washburn to an MIAA-record five MIAA Tournament Championships.
“Bob Chipman has been a great influence on generations of young men who have come to Washburn University as student athletes,” said Dr. Jerry Farley, president of Washburn. “We look forward to celebrating with him this year as he closes out his career.”
Under Chipman, the Ichabods have made 12 NCAA Tournament appearances including a national finals appearance in 2001 and back-to-back Elite Eight runs in 1993 and 1994.
Chipman’s 788 wins ranks third among NCAA Division II coaches and sixth all-time in NCAA Division II history. Among all NCAA levels, his win total is 17th. With an overall record of 788-343, his .697 winning percentage is 19th in NCAA Division II active coaches.
Individually, he has coached 23 All-Americans, 25 all-region selections, eight MIAA most valuable players, 17 all-MIAA first-team selections and 64 all-MIAA honorees since joining the NCAA ranks.
Chipman has guided his teams to 23 20-win seasons, including seven in a row from 1983-84 to 1989-90, four in a row from 1991-92 to 1994-95 and seven in a row from 1998-99 to 2004-05. Chipman’s teams have made 16 national tournament appearances, 12 in the NCAA and four in the NAIA. His teams have averaged 22 wins a year and he has coached 23 of the 25 20-win seasons in Washburn history.
In addition to the coaching awards obtained after the 1986-87 NAIA Championship season, Chipman was named MIAA Coach of the Year following the 1992, 1993 and 2004 seasons. He was named Kodak District coach of the year by the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) in 1993 and the men’s four-year coach of the year by the Kansas Basketball Coaches Association (KBCA) in 1994 and 2001.
His success at the collegiate level has brought Chipman the opportunity to coach on an international level as well. He served a second stint as an assistant coach for the United State’s entry in the Pan American Games during the summer of 1991, earning a bronze medal. In 1983, he was an assistant to the team that won the gold medal. He helped coach the U.S. entry in the World University Games to a gold medal in 1989. In 1985, he was an assistant coach for the Amateur Basketball Association/USA Jones Cup Team that won a silver medal.
Chipman has also taken the Washburn team on international trips, most recently visiting the Baltic Sea in the summer of 2012. Other trips included tours in China, France and the former Yugoslavia.
Chipman has always looked to Kansas basketball players first to wear an Ichabod uniform, as evident from the 12 Kansas players on this year’s roster. In his 38 years as the Ichabods’ head coach, his program has spent more than $1 million in scholarship money for basketball players from the Sunflower State.
Chipman holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Kansas State University. The 1973 graduate earned two letters as a guard while playing for Wildcat coaching legend Jack Hartman. He played at Mott Community Junior College in his hometown of Flint, Mich., prior to transferring to Kansas State.
Chipman and his wife, Carol, live in Topeka. Their daughter Kelsey was a four-year letterwinner on the Kansas State volleyball team and Bobby was a four-year member of the Ichabod basketball team.
