Dennis Gates was a young standout at Chicago’s Whitney Young High School and mulling college scholarship opportunities when Norm Stewart, late in his coaching career, tried to persuade him to play point guard for Missouri.
Gates was impressed by Stewart’s pitch that day but ultimately signed with California.
More than two decades later, Gates will be the one soon sitting across from Missouri recruits in living rooms.
The 42-year-old Gates was hired to replace the fired Cuonzo Martin on Tuesday, tasked with rebuilding a floundering program that has churned through seven head and interim coaches since Stewart prowled the sideline in Columbia.
Gates is coming off a wildly successful rebuild at Cleveland State, where he inherited a program that won just 11 games in 2019 and engineered one of the biggest turnarounds in Division I basketball. The Vikings went 19-8 and reached the NCAA Tournament last season, then went 20-11 and lost in the first round of the NIT this season.