Stan Heath
Stan Heath
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Stan Heath

Stanley Heath III (born December 17, 1964) is an American basketball coach currently serving as the head coach for Eastern Michigan. Heath formerly served as head coach at the University of South Florida, the University of Arkansas and Kent State University, the latter of whom he led to the Elite Eight of the 2002 NCAA basketball tournament. He led all three programs to at least one NCAA tournament.

Stan Heath graduated from Detroit Catholic Central High School in 1983. He was an all-state guard during his time there. He went on to earn his bachelor's in social science from Eastern Michigan University in 1988 and his master's in sports administration from Wayne State University in 1993. Heath redshirted during his first year at Eastern Michigan before lettering his final three years (1985–1987).

Heath is married to the former Ramona Webb (whom he met during his junior year at Eastern Michigan) and they have two sons, Jordan and Joshua.

Stan Heath began his collegiate career at Hillsdale College in 1989 as an assistant. After one season, he moved to Albion College where he was an assistant and the junior varsity head coach for two years. He worked at Wayne State University in Detroit the following three years, including serving as associate head coach in 1994 when WSU set a school record for victories (25–5), helping the Tartars win two Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference titles with a trip to the NCAA Division II Final Four in 1993.

After two seasons as an assistant at Bowling Green State University, he joined Tom Izzo at Michigan State University where he was an assistant for five years. He helped the Spartans advance to the Final Four three straight years (1999, 2000, 2001), win the 2000 national title, make another appearance in the Sweet 16 and go a combined 132–37. The Spartans posted records of 17–12 in 1997, 22–8 in 1998, 33–5 in 1999, 32–7 in 2000 and 28–5 in 2001. In addition to the three trips to the Final Four, MSU also reached the Sweet 16 in 1998 and the second round of the NIT in 1997.

On March 19, 2001, Sports Illustrated featured "five college coaches waiting in the wings." Heath was on that list, along with assistant Leonard Perry of Iowa State, Florida assistant John Pelphrey, head coach Jeff Ruland of Iona and Hofstra head coach Jay Wright. A month after that, he was named the head coach at Kent State.

Heath got his first collegiate head coach job at Kent State in 2002. Under his guidance, the Golden Flashes finished with a 30–6 record that year and won the Mid-American Conference regular-season and tournament titles. They then came within a victory of reaching the Final Four before falling to Indiana at the South Regional finals of the NCAA tournament.

Along the way, Kent set school and MAC records for wins (30), breaking the record of 29 set by Ball State in 1989; became the first MAC team to reach the Elite Eight since Ohio University in 1964; recorded a league-record 21-game winning streak, including a 17–1 mark in conference play; beat three ranked teams in the NCAA Tournament, including No. 20 Oklahoma State, 69–61, No. 8 University of Alabama, 71–58, and No. 9 University of Pittsburgh, 78–73 in overtime; went 12–0 at home with an average attendance of 4,928, Kent's best since 1970; led the MAC in scoring defense (64.0 ppg), scoring margin (+11.9 ppg), field goal percentage defense (.418), rebounding margin (+5.0 rpg) and assist-to-turnover ratio (1.24) while also ranking second in three-point field goal percentage defense (.326) and turnover margin (+2.78); and suffered its five regular season losses by a total of 15 points.

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