By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

GULFPORT — For the second time in less than 10 months, the once-vaunted Gulfport boys basketball program is looking for a new head coach.
Gulfport Athletics Director Matt Walters posted on social media late Monday afternoon that the Admirals were looking for a new person to lead the perennial state power program to replace Steve Hesser, who stepped down after just one season. It marks the first time in over 80 years that a Gulfport head boys basketball coach lasted just one season on the job.
Gulfport is coming off one of its most futile seasons on the hardwood in the long and storied history of the program, finishing with a 9-21 overall record that wrapped up Saturday night on the road in Meridian with a 64-41 loss to Meridian.
Two days later, Hesser was out of a job.

He will leave the Admirals after recording the least amount of wins and the most amount of losses in a single season in at least the past 90 years in program history.
Hesser replaced Owen Miller, who moved on to take on the job as men’s coach at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College after 12 seasons at Gulfport. Miller averaged more than 20 wins a season as coach of the Admirals, winning the Class 6A state championship in 2014.
“I had been retired for two years and decided to get back into it,” said Hesser earlier this season. “I had a connection with the AD at Gulfport and went from there.”
An immediate search is on for Hesser’s successor.

Hesser and Walters were coaching rivals some years back in the Missouri prep basketball circles. A native of Stillwater, Oklahoma, Hesser played collegiately in the late 1970s at New Mexico Military Institute and Central Oklahoma, then returned to his hometown after his playing career ended and finished his education at Oklahoma State.

He began his coaching career at Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, where he coached four seasons, then served on Billy Tubbs’ staff at Oklahoma for one season while he pursued a master’s degree in education from OU.
In 1985, he returned to the high school ranks at Bartlesville, Oklahoma, where he had a highly-successful seven-season tenure, winning Class 6A state titles in 1989, 1991 and 1992, along with a second-place finish in 1988.
He moved on to his alma mater at Stillwater High in 1993, where he coached six seasons, then took over at Glendale High in Springfield, where he coached another six years before moving across town to take over at Drury.
It was at Glendale that Hesser and Walters crossed paths as coaching rivals in Missouri. In all, Hesser’s high school coaching record in Oklahoma and Missouri was 359-181, a 66.5 percent winning percentage.

It was at Drury, though, that Hesser made his biggest mark. In 17 seasons, his teams were 354-145 (70.9 percent), a tenure capped winning by the 2013 NCAA Division II national championship.
He retired in 2021 as the school’s all-time winning coach, and among the top 10 among Division II coaches in wins and winning percentage.
He is a member of the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame and the Missouri Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame.
According to a release by the Gulfport Athletic Department at the time of his hiring, “Hesser’s teams are known for their tenacious defense, and ball movement within the motion offense.”
However, Gulfport rarely saw much of either this past season.