University of Central Arkansas Athletic Director Brad Teague didn't want to wait to select his next women's basketball coach.
He was proactive in the search, and on Friday announced his hire: Marshall women's basketball Coach Tony Kemper.
Kemper has spent the past 10 seasons at Marshall, serving as its head coach for the most recent six and compiling a 79-90 record. Prior to that, Kemper was a UCA men's assistant from 2006-10 and a women's assistant from 2010-12.
"Brad knows what he's doing," Kemper told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "And I think his plan was a good one in terms of the speed at which to operate his search."
Kemper was officially interviewed Wednesday in Conway. From his first conversation with Teague about the job opening, following Sandra Rushing's resignation in February, Kemper said it was an opportunity he was interested in.
"I have really good memories of successful teams there, and I think of successful teams in a formula that we can recreate," Kemper said. "We had a lot of really good players from the state of Arkansas that I think had a lot of pride in the university. You know, we carried ourselves really well and had a lot of success."
He will take the reins of a Sugar Bears program that went 8-18 last season before opting not to play its final two games due to having just five active players.
Kemper was Matt Daniel's assistant with the Sugar Bears from 2010-12. When Daniel left for Marshall following the 2012 season, Kemper went with him and was his assistant for five seasons.
"I'm extremely excited for both sides," Daniel said. "I'm extremely, extremely excited for Tony and also for UCA and Brad Teague. ... I think it is an exciting time for him and his family. I'm excited for his kids to grow up in Conway, and I think he can get the program headed back in the right direction."
When Daniel announced that he was leaving for Marshall in 2012, Kemper felt he would have been ready had the job been offered despite him never being a head coach. More than a decade later, Kemper and Daniel both agreed the head coaching experience he's gotten since will be invaluable as he takes over the UCA program.
"I say this to assistant coaches a lot, I was ready to be a head coach when I got my first job, but until you've had one, you don't really know what you're ready for," Kemper said. "So now I've dealt with six different teams, recruited six different sets of athletes. If you're humble about things, you learned a little bit through [169] games. And so, really night and day difference as far as [my] readiness to be the head coach of Central Arkansas."
"The only way to get experience is to be thrown to the fire," Daniel said. "And he's been thrown in the fire at a tough job at Marshall and has had success doing that. I think it will pay dividends for both him and UCA."
Kemper said he will work on recruiting and building his staff from Conway and remotely from West Virginia, as his three children, Brayden, Landry and Jolie, and wife Sandra, a professor in the communications disorders department at Marshall, finish the spring semester.
"My family loved Conway," Kemper said. "That was a great community to us when we were out there. And so the thought of returning there is really appealing as well. So there were a whole bunch of reasons why it makes sense for us."