Bob Chipman, one of college basketball’s winningest coaches and the winningest coach in MIAA history, begins his 38th and final season at the helm of the Ichabod basketball program in 2016-17 after announcing his retirement prior to the start of the school year.
Chipman enters the season with a 788-343 (.697) overall record and he has 558 wins since the Ichabods joined the MIAA - the most of any team in the league since the 1991-92 season.
Chipman’s win total is 17th out of all coaches at any NCAA level. Among all coaches who have at least 10 years experience in Division II, he is 19th in winning percentage and third in victories.
Among Chipman’s top accomplishments are his 1986-87 NAIA national championship and his 2000-01 NCAA national finalist finish. He has also coached 23 different All-Americans, 25 all-region selections, eight MIAA most valuable players, 17 all-MIAA first-team selections and 61 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, and 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.
Chipman joined the Washburn staff in 1976 as an assistant to longtime head coach Glenn Cafer. He served as assistant coach for three seasons, in addition to being an associate professor of physical education, softball and men’s tennis coach, and facilities coordinator. Chipman was promoted to head coach in April 1979-80 when Cafer was appointed director of athletics.
Chipman enjoyed a banner season as the Ichabods won the 1986-87 NAIA national championship in his eighth year. The Ichabods went 35-4, won the Central States Intercollegiate Conference championship and ended the year on a 22-game winning streak, including the five games of the NAIA national tournament played in Kansas City, Mo., in Kemper Arena. Washburn defeated West Virginia State, 79-77 in the national championship game on March 17, 1987. The Ichabods were up 76-66 with just over two minutes remaining and then held off a late run by West Virginia State.
A 90-59 win over Marymount that same season gave him career victory No. 173, making him the winningest coach in Ichabod history. Chipman was well-recognized for his accomplishments, garnering conference, district, area and national coach of the year honors that year.
In addition to the coaching awards obtained after the 1986-87 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 U.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 brought the Washburn team along with him on international trips, most recently visiting the Baltic Sea in the summer of 2012. He has also taken the team on trips to China, France and the former Yugoslavia.
Despite his travels all over the world, Chipman has always looked to Kansas basketball players first as evident from the nine Kansas players on this year’s roster. In his 37 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 and served as a graduate assistant coach while completing his JD/MBA degree from Washburn.
