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Coach Paul Allen Duke remains a super-charged bundle of energy who frequently shouts at his Mississippi College basketball players from tip-off until the clock expires.
In his 20th season as the Lady Choctaws head coach, Duke’s passion for the game continues to grow with MC transitioning back in NCAA Division II and returning to the Gulf South Conference. The team’s leader since 1995-96 after seven seasons as assistant coach, Paul Allen’s been achieving several major milestones along the way.
The latest comes at the January 24th game on the road in Livingston against West Alabama. Duke will coach his 500th game, all at Mississippi College. Duke’s .680 winning percentage ranks as the highest in school history and he’s won more games than anybody in MC’s sports record books.
The Ridgeland resident always stays at the top of the charts when it comes to his loud words of encouragement at the A.E. Wood Coliseum to motivate players to give their best.
“He was constantly yelling,” says former Lady Choctaws standout Lacey Kennedy, 30, head coach of the Pearl High Lady Pirates basketball team. “He yelled at me. But I loved it. I thrived on it.”
A Lady Choctaws leader who averaged a stout 21 points per contest, Lacey cannot say enough good things about what Coach Duke has meant to her over the years.
“Coach Duke opened my eyes to the fact that even the best of college basketball players usually aren’t dribbling a basketball after they graduate,” Kennedy said. “He helped me become a better basketball player, but he also helped me become a better person, coach and mother. Through his teachings today I am able to help guide young people in the right direction as a coach.”
His style was to influence the lives of the women on and off the hardwood. “It was about helping his players to succeed in life.”
Kennedy recently joined the Army Reserve. “I sought approval from my husband, mother, father, sisters and, of course, Coach Duke.”
The Pearl Pirates hoops coach recalls some of the funny lines that Duke delivered during games or at hoops practices.
“This is not YMCA ball! This is organized basketball,” Duke told the Lady Choctaws on more than one occasion. “Attention to detail! When you are getting ready for a date, you don’t put lipstick on your eyes!,” is another “Dukeism.” Then there’s “Slow down! Everyone likes to slow dance!”
While Division II coaches like Duke don’t get the media attention of big names like Coach K at Duke or Coach Calipari at Kentucky, the MC Choctaws coach has been part of several notable milestones.
When Duke earned his 336th win on December 13 against Christian Brothers, it marked the 700th win in Lady Choctaws hoops history dating back to the early 1970s. One of Duke’s signature wins this season came on January 17, a thrilling 74-69 home victory over GSC rival Delta State. It was the first time the two in-state teams met on the hardwood since 1996.
Mississippi College sports announcer Reid Vance plans to mention Duke’s 500th game on the Choctaws on-line broadcast Saturday. It is something worth trumpeting, he believes.
“Coaches who make it to 500 games in one place are rare, and it’s almost always because they win the vast majority of those games,” says Vance, an MC communication professor. “Coach Duke is no exception, and Mississippi College is fortunate to have him lead our women’s program so well for so many years.”
Colleagues like MC Choctaws men’s basketball coach Don Lofton is among legions of Duke fans. Asked what makes him a terrific coach, Lofton says “Paul Allen is a perfectionist. He helps prepare the young women he coaches to be prepared for life.”
Tom Williams, the MC athletics faculty representative, often sees Duke in action at the Golden Dome. Asked what makes him a successful coach, Williams says it’s his “passion for the game of basketball and his passion for excellence. He seems to be able to motivate his players to perform beyond their abilities.”
Paul Duke knows how to teach valuable lessons. As an MC freshman, Lacey Kennedy got a new red sports car and quickly picked up a speeding ticket driving home to Brookhaven from the Clinton campus. She was traveling 98 mph in a 70 mph zone. Lacey’s mom called Coach Duke about the incident and told the coach to keep her keys for two weeks. One day Duke called Lacey into his office on the Clinton campus, asked how she liked her new car and requested to see her car keys. Duke kept the keys for 45 days. “I was car-less for a month and a half,” Lacey says. “Of course when he tells the story now, I was going 120 mph.”
Duke, who led the Lady Choctaws to 13 American Southwest Conference tournaments, has been a key part of the MC family for decades. Growing up in Columbus, Duke received his bachelor’s degree at Mississippi State University in 1976 and master’s at MC in 1987. His life isn’t just hoops. He’s married to the former Cathy Lovvorn, a MC graduate and corporate accountant for Saks Fifth Avenue at its Jackson office.
“I do love my wife more than basketball,” says Coach Duke.
