Interview with Norm Stewart, Review of ESPN’s “Norm”

Editor’s note: ESPN Films asked Rock Chalk Blog to watch and review an advanced screening of “Norm,” an ESPN Film about Missouri head basketball coach Norm Stewart. RCB writer Sarah Davis watched the film before having a one-on-one interview with Stewart. “Norm” airs Sunday, May 1 at 8 p.m. CT.

In 38 years, Norm Stewart won 731 basketball games as the coach of Northern Iowa, and of course, the University of Missouri. It could take a lifetime to explain the impact Stewart had on college basketball and the world around him, but ESPN’s “Norm” accomplishes that in an hour, capturing his career as a coach as well as his life outside of basketball.

Viewers will not forget “Norm” easily. As the film focuses on Stewart’s career with the Missouri Tigers, it also tells the story of his struggle outside of basketball and his fight with colon cancer. “Norm” takes you to the heights of Stewart’s 17 seasons with 20+ wins and then puts a lump in your throat just in time to lift your spirits again.

[su_pullquote align=”right”]A few former Missouri players recalled that if they were going to go for an overnight trip, they would wait until they were across the Kansas border for sleeping and eating arrangements.[/su_pullquote]

As a kid, Norm Stewart was a typical boy. He played baseball and basketball, and “Norm” touches briefly on his upbringing, but talking to Stewart shined the brightest light on his childhood.

“Well, we didn’t have a high school baseball team,” Stewart said. “You played in small towns in those days. It was in the ‘40’s and ‘50’s. You had American Legion teams, and so you’d play the towns. If a town wasn’t big enough to field a team, then you’d combine with another community and we would go to Shelbina, [Missouri], and we had our Legion team with Shelbina, and it seemed to me like at one time, that included the county, and so all the players came from the county to support one Legion team, not a high school team though. We only played in the summertime.”

As a two-sport athlete in high school, Stewart chose basketball over baseball because, as he pointed out, “you only have so many opportunities.” But Stewart said there were many lessons from baseball that had carried over in his mentality and character on the basketball court, and Stewart says that it is mostly due to his coach.

“Well, the baseball coach was John “Hi” Simmons, and I would say that looking back at the records from about 1952 to about 1968, he was one of the top two or three coaches in the nation, and he was in the national finals four times, and we won one title,” Stewart said. “He was an outstanding coach and a very good fundamentalist, and it was a joy to play baseball, but he also taught me one great lesson: you don’t talk about winning. You just prepare to win.”

In the days of Stewart’s coaching career, the most interesting point in the film features the Border War with the University of Kansas. Stewart had always said that he “would never spend a nickel in the state of Kansas.” During his 32 years at Mizzou, Stewart stuck to his word. A few former Missouri players recalled that if they were going to go for an overnight trip, they would wait until they were across the Kansas border for sleeping and eating arrangements.

Touching on the heated rivalry between the two teams was definitely a strength of the film. What was interesting about it, though, was that after all of the “Sit down, Norm!” chants were done, all of the games that went down to the wire had finished and after Stewart finally retired, former KU coach Roy Williams had nothing but praise for the legendary Missouri coach.

“For a long time, people said that Roy Williams was the best coach who couldn’t win the big one,” Williams said in the film. “But Roy Williams is not any better of a coach than Norm Stewart was. It just didn’t work out for him.”

Off the court, by far the most inspirational part of the film followed Stewart’s response to being told that he had colon cancer. When he was a senior in high school, his coach told him, as he was sitting on the bench, en route to a blowout at his state championship game, “you put your head up, and don’t you ever put it down.” Stewart said these words from his coach propelled him through the biggest fight of his life and gave him the strength to prove that he was bigger than a disease that claims millions of lives every year.

[su_pullquote align=”right”]“You don’t talk about winning. You just prepare to win.”[/su_pullquote]

“Norm” also discusses Stewart’s work raising money for cancer research and his livelihood in doing so. Stewart cited his family as he unpacked his motivation for devoting his time to the cause.

“Well, I think that [motivation] comes from my parents and the people I’ve known,” Stewart said. “My family. They say that the interesting thing about life is that it’s absolutely impossible, if you sincerely try to help another person that you won’t help yourself, and that’s been ingrained in my family, and I think it’s something that’s carried through and helped me through the toughest times.”

Between getting news of the cancer’s remission and returning to the basketball court in 1989, Norm and his wife Virginia did a lot of traveling. Recalling his traveling time, Stewart said that the two of them traveled about a week out of each month and “watched a lot of sunsets” before Norm returned to coaching.

After another decade on the sidelines (which included some very hefty NCAA sanctions), Norm Stewart retired at the end of the 1998-1999 season. Stewart recounted his decision-making process as he stepped down before the term of his contract had expired.

“Well, there were a number of circumstances surrounding the program,” Stewart said. “I’d talked with the chancellor at the beginning of the previous year, and he’d suggested to me an interesting conversation that usually, when a coach goes in, he’s trying to get his contract extended, and the chancellor is maybe trying to shorten it – and this circumstance, they were trying to get me to extend the contract and I was trying to shorten it. A year later, I felt that everything had been taken care of, and I thought that it would be a good time – even though it was an early departure – I still felt like it was time to make a change at the university, and they could continue on what we had built, and maybe even improve upon it.”

Stewart remained in a different position for the following 10 years with Mizzou and still has lasting effects on the university.

[su_pullquote align=”right”]For Tigers, Jayhawks or anyone with a love of college basketball or a good story, “Norm” is a must-see.[/su_pullquote]

“Norm” is much more than a film about a head coach from the University of Missouri, it tells the story of a basketball legend and a man who changed the lives of more people than most have even made contact with. Through the highs and lows of a brilliant coaching career alongside his triumphs and struggles with cancer, Norm Stewart is a man that will go down as a legend. For Tigers, Jayhawks or anyone with a love of college basketball or a good story, “Norm” is a must-see.