Bob stinnett

Bob Stinnett was hired as head coach of the University of West Florida men’s basketball team on July 27, 2009. Stinnett, a UWF Athletics Hall of Fame inductee and team captain of the first basketball team at the university, comes into the position with a wealth of coaching knowledge and experience in the region.

Stinnett’s coaching career has included stops at the high school, junior college, and university levels, with his most recent job at Pensacola High School. In his two years at PHS, the Tigers went 54-15, including a district and regional championship in 2008-09 and a trip to the state final four. In three years as a high school head coach, Stinnett holds a 71-17 record (.807), while he has tallied a record of 163-78 (.676) in eight years as a head coach at the junior college level.

After graduating from UWF in 1968, Stinnett was an assistant coach at the varsity level and head coach at the junior varsity level at PHS for one season. He then took on his first head coaching job at newly-integrated B.T. Washington High School in Pensacola in 1969-70 and led the Wildcats to an AA state championship in his first year.

He then made stops at Brevard Junior College in Cocoa, Fla., where he received his AA degree, and Broward Community College in Pompano Beach, Fla. He led Brevard to a 27-3 record in 1971-72 as an assistant coach, and as head coach at Broward he led the team to two appearances in the state junior college tournament and one conference championship.

In 1975, Stinnett landed an assistant coach position at Louisiana State in Baton Rouge, La. and stayed there for three seasons. At LSU he assisted in recruiting alongside head coach Dale Brown and helped develop an eventual Final Four team.

Stinnett returned to coaching in 1984 to take over the men’s basketball program at Pensacola Junior College, where he led the Pirates to a 53-15 record in two seasons. In 1986, PJC captured the Panhandle Conference Championship and FCCAA State Championship, leading to a fifth place finish at the NJCAA Tournament.

Stinnett returned to NCAA Division I basketball in 1987 with an assistant coach position at the University of New Orleans. In his one year at UNO the team went 23-7 and earned an invite to the National Invitational Tournament (NIT).

After a few years away from coaching, Stinnett returned to the junior college ranks in 1990, making stops at Okaloosa-Walton Community College (1990-92) and Chipola Junior College (1994-95). He started the basketball program at Okaloosa-Walton, and after a 9-21 record in their first year the team improved to 21-9 in their second. Stinnett then acted as Athletic Director at Chipola for one year as well as head coach of the basketball team, leading the team to a record of 22-8.

Stinnett was a key member of the first UWF basketball team in 1967-68, and as team captain he helped lead the Argonauts to a 19-3 record, still the top season in program history. He graduated from UWF in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in Health, Physical Education, and Recreation. Stinnett later earned a master’s in Physical Education from Ball State University in 1972.

Between coaching jobs Stinnett has also successfully owned and operated several restaurants in the gulf coast region, including three Sonny's Real Pit Bar-B-Q franchises. Bob is married to June Yen and has two daughters, Kimberly Crittenden and Natalie Pate, and three grandchildren, Justin Pate (10), Holley Pate (8), and Caitlyn Crittenden (1).