Women’s basketball coach hired
Candi Whitaker was hired in April as the ninth head women’s basketball coach at Missouri Western. She
has served as the head coach at Texas Tech from 2013-18, as an associate head coach at Oklahoma State 2012-13 and the head coach at the University of Missouri-Kansas City 2006-12. Whitaker has coached 24 student athletes to all-conference honors, 47 to academic all-conference status and nationally ranked recruiting classes. As a head coach, Whitaker’s student athletes have posted a 100% graduation rate.
At Texas Tech, Whitaker turned around the program between year one and year two, going from seven wins to 15. In five seasons leading the Lady Raiders, Whitaker had four players named All-Big 12. In her final season at Texas Tech, a player was named to the Big 12 All-Freshman Team after being named conference Freshman of the Week for a record six times. Whitaker led Texas Tech to four consecutive Big 12 Championship appearances and back-to-back quarterfinal appearances. Under her guidance, 11 Lady Raiders were named Academic All-Big 12 with eight earning spots on the Dean’s or President’s List.
When she took over the UMKC program at age 26, Whitaker became one of the youngest head coaches in women’s basketball. She won 83 games there and left the program as its second-winningest head coach.
Whitaker graduated from Texas Tech in 2002 with a degree in exercise sports science and earned her master’s in sports administration at Valparaiso in 2004. She and her husband, Matt, have three sons.
Football to celebrate 50th season
The 2019 season will be the 50th season of Missouri Western football, and a number of special events and recognitions are being planned to celebrate the occasion. Fans selected the 50th anniversary logo that will be featured on five unique helmets to be worn by the team during its home schedule in 2019. Each home game, the team will wear a different helmet logo that had been worn by previous Griffon teams. The 50th anniversary logo will be worn on the back of the helmets. In recognition of the golden season, the team will unveil special gold uniforms at the season opener Sept. 5.
Fans can also score special collector’s edition Griffon Gameday magazines at each home game in 2019. Each edition will feature information from a different decade of Griffon Football, including All-Decade teams. Football alumni will be recognized at games throughout the season, along with many other special events to be announced later.
New sports performance director
Matt Mandich has been hired as the director of sports performance/head strength and conditioning coach.
He had been an assistant strength and conditioning coach at the University of Southern Mississippi where he was the primary director for baseball programming and an assistant for the football team. Mandich was also an assistant strength and conditioning coach at Wofford College from 2015-17. He served as assistant strength and conditioning coach at Missouri Southern State University, an MIAA conference school, for two years, also.
A four-time All-Sun Belt Conference offensive lineman at Arkansas State University, Mandich received his bachelor’s degree in exercise science from there in 2009. He received his master’s in health and human performance from Northwestern State University in 2012. Mandich has certifications from the Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association, United States Weightlifting, Reflexive Performance Reset, National Academy of Sports Medicine and the American Red Cross.
Mandich replaces Greg Carbin ’07, who left Missouri Western for a position with the Kansas City Chiefs.