Kurt Michael Kanaskie (born April 14, 1958) is an American college basketball coach who is currently the associate head coach for men's basketball at

UNC Wilmington The University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW or UNC Wilmington) is a public research university in Wilmington, North Carolina. It is part of the University of North Carolina System and enrolls 17,499 undergraduate and graduate students eac ...

. Previously, Kanaskie was head coach positions at Lock Haven, IUP, and Drake.

Early life and education

Born in Enola, Pennsylvania, Kanaskie grew up in nearby Mechanicsburg and attended Cumberland Valley High School, in which he was an all-state basketball player. Kanaskie later attended La Salle College (now

La Salle University La Salle University () is a private, Catholic university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The university was founded in 1863 by the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools and named for St. Jean-Baptiste de La Salle. History La ...

) and played basketball for the La Salle Explorers under head coach Paul Westhead from 1976 to 1980. As a senior in 1979–80, Kanaskie averaged 14.5 points and 2.7 rebounds and helped La Salle win the ECC Tournament and make the 1980 NCAA tournament. Kanaskie graduated from La Salle in 1980 with a

Bachelor of Science in business administration Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) is a bachelor's degree in business administration awarded by colleges and universities after completion of undergraduate study in the fundamentals of business administration and usually including advanced ...

Coaching career

In the

1980 NBA draft The 1980 NBA draft was the 34th annual draft of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The draft was held on June 10, 1980, at the Sheraton Centre Hotel & Towers, before the 1980–81 season. In this draft, 23 NBA teams took turns selectin ...

, the

Golden State Warriors The Golden State Warriors are an American professional basketball team based in San Francisco. The Warriors compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA), as a member of the league's Western Conference Pacific Division. Founded in 194 ...

selected Kanaskie as the second pick in the eighth round, 162nd overall. That year, Kanaskie became a college basketball assistant coach at South Carolina under Bill Foster. After five years in that position, Kanaskie served as head coach at Division II Lock Haven University from 1985 to 1988. Inheriting a program that won only 18 games in the past four seasons, Kanaskie led Lock Haven to 15 wins in his first season and ended with a 55–32 overall record.Search Kurt Kanaskie i
NCAA Coaching Statistics
/ref> The Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) named Kanaskie its Coach of the Year for the West Division in 1987 and 1988 and co-Coach of the Year in the conference in 1987.http://static.psacsports.org/custompages/mbball/MBB%20All-PSAC%20History.pdf In 1988, Kanaskie became head coach at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP), another PSAC school. In eight seasons at IUP, Kanaskie had a 152–75 record after inheriting a program with four straight losing seasons. Kanaskie led IUP to its first-ever NCAA tournament in

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

and earned two more West Division PSAC Coach of the Year honors in 1994 and 1995. Kanaskie moved up to the Division I level as head coach at Drake University, a position he held from 1996 to 2003. When he began the job, Drake was under NCAA probation and had few returning scholarship players. Drake won only five games in Kanaskie's first two seasons but improved to 12–16 (8–10 Missouri Valley Conference) in 2000–01. Kanaskie received a five-year contract extension after that season but still did not deliver a winning season. Days after the 2002–03 season, both Kanaskie's lawyer and the Drake athletic director indicated that Kanaskie would keep his job. However, Kanaskie resigned on April 11, 2003, ending his tenure at Drake with an overall 62–136 record. Kanaskie returned to being an assistant coach in 2003 at

Penn State #Redirect Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campu ...

under Ed DeChellis. In 2009, DeChellis promoted Kanaskie to associate head coach. When DeChellis became head coach at Navy in 2011, Kanaskie followed and also became associate head coach. After one year at Navy, Kanaskie became assistant coach at Virginia Tech under

James Johnson James Johnson may refer to: Artists, actors, authors, and musicians *James Austin Johnson (born 1989), American comedian & actor, ''Saturday Night Live'' cast member * James B. Johnson (born 1944), author of science nonfiction novels *James P. Joh ...

in 2012. Johnson was fired after two seasons. Kanaskie moved to Air Force as assistant coach under

Dave Pilipovich David Gabe Pilipovich (born January 28, 1964) is an American basketball coach. Pilipovich is an assistant coach at The University of New Mexico He played college basketball at Thiel and has been a basketball coach since 1988. After five years a ...

in 2014. On April 6, 2020, Kanaskie was hired as an assistant coach under Takayo Siddle at UNCW.

Head coaching record

Sources:http://static.psacsports.org/custompages/mbball/MBB%20PSAC%20NCAA%20Playoff%20History.pdf

References