Royce Waltman saw his basketball career going nowhere as a player.

As a coach? Well, that's a different story.

A 1964 Slippery Rock College graduate, Waltman is entering his 10th season as men's basketball coach at Indiana State University.

He transferred to The Rock in the first place because he believed his basketball playing days were done.

"I had walked on at the University of Pittsburgh as a freshman and made the squad,"Waltman said. "But I was second-string on the freshman team and was miffed because I wasn't on the first team.

"I didn't realize at the time that just making the team was pretty good."

So Waltman gave up basketball and moved on to Slippery Rock, where he played three years in the outfield for The Rock baseball team and coach Wally Rose.

"I was a solid defensive player, but I couldn't hit my hat size, which took some of the fun out of the game for me,"Waltman said. "But we had some pretty good teams there."

After graduating with a degree in health and physical education, Waltman returned home to Bedford and became head varsity basketball coach there. He put together a 276-110 record in 15 seasons, winning 11 league titles and seven district crowns.

His first coaching experience in college was at Indiana University, where he served as an assistant to Bobby Knight for five years.

While with Knight, the Hoosiers were 116-41, won a national championship in 1987, made four trips to the NCAATournament and one trip to the NIT Finals.

"When you're on his staff, you really get to coach,"Waltman said of Knight. "He likes to oversee practice and break it down. He lets his assistants do the coaching.

"Lose three games in a row and Bobby got a little testy, but I learned a ton from him,"Waltman added.

The next level for Waltman was becoming a head coach. He accepted the reins of Division IIIDePauw University, where he won 100 of 136 games over five seasons.

His biggest accomplishment may have been his next stop:Division IIUniversity of Indianapolis.

The Greyhounds had compiled a .327 winning percentage in the 14 years before Waltman arrived. In his first year there, Indianapolis set a school-record for wins in 1992-93 and he went on to coach the school to back-to-back winning basketball seasons for the first time in 23 years.

"I took over a pretty solid program at DePauw,"Waltman recalled. "But Indianapolis was at the bottom of the barrel. We eventually built that team to the No. 1 ranking in the nation.

"I always recruit attitude and personality. I recruit kids who will listen and work hard."

He used that same formula to rebuild Indiana State's basketball program, which had fallen upon hard times since Larry Bird led the Sycamores to the 1979 national championship game.

Within three years, Waltman guided Indiana State to consecutive NCAATournament appearances and he was named Missouri Valley Conference Coach of the Year in 1999-2000.

Since those consecutive 22-win seasons, however, the Sycamores have endured five consecutive losing campaigns and a composite 46-100 record during that stretch.

"You can make excuses, but it all boils down to recruiting mistakes,"Waltman said. "We didn't recruit enough top kids to replace the stars we lost.

"We've had a bunch of good role players, but no standouts. We've paid the price for some careless evaluation."

There are signs the program is returning to prominence. Last year's team began the year 8-0 before injuries triggered an 11-game losing streak and an eventual 13-16 record.

That was with a young squad that's returning next season.

"Call me an elitist, but smart guys do better, and that's who I recruit,"Waltman said. "Bring in good students, good people and it pays off."

Bird's legacy remains big at Indiana State and Waltman admitted that he gets tired of recollections to that era at times.

"The older people in town, they still talk about Larry Bird and the glory days,"he said. "Sometimes I wish our current players would get a little more attention.

"Still, high school players don't know much about college basketball history, but they've heard of Larry Bird. That's name recognition for our program."

<i>This is one in a series of articles on Slippery Rock University graduates who have moved on to athletic careers elsewhere.</i>