Kuyper hits ground running with Racers
MBB: He is currently the only General Manager in the Missouri Valley Conference
Ernie Kuyper grew up in Mitchell, South Dakota with his cousin, Murray State’s new men’s basketball coach, Ryan Miller. To get a phone call from his cousin is never out of the ordinary, but when Kuyper got a call from Miller in March, it meant his life was about to change.
“I was sitting in my backyard, and my phone rang,” Kuyper told Dave Winder on the ‘Racer Report’ podcast. “I pick it up and Coach Miller says, ‘We're going to Murray, Kentucky.’
(You can listen to the entire Racer Report Podcast here.)
Kuyper’s role on Miller’s staff is that of the program’s General Manager. It’s the first time Murray State Men’s Basketball has had a general manager position, and Murray State is the only program in the Missouri Valley Conference currently with a staff member listed as a GM. Listening to Kuyper, the position is more of a Swiss Army knife, covering a lot of ground to help out Miller and the rest of the staff.
“My philosophy is I just want to take as many headaches off the head coach as possible,” Kuyper said. “The bricks keep going on his shoulders. I'm trying to take them off. ‘Coach, you coach basketball. I'll handle the contracts. I'll help with the SID. I'll help with the game schedule. I'll help with where the players live. I'll help with (revenue) share. I’ll help (with) anything business related, because my experience there is in the entrepreneurship field.’ I'm trying to figure out how I can really help in those departments and let Coach concentrate on coaching and winning ball games. My main focus here is how can I help take the nuances, the little things off of Coach’s plate. (I can) come to him like, ‘Hey, (we’ve) get some options on the table of who we can play on the schedule. Coach, do you like this or this? Hey, we need to go raise some money over here.’ Just things like that.”
The 2025-26 edition of the Racers will report on June 1st, and Kuyper and the rest of the staff are eager to start working with the team.
“We can't wait, as we call it, for our family be together,” Kuyper said. “So June 1, all the young men all arrive, and we get ready to work for our goal of winning. We're excited to get them in and get them going and help get them organized and set up.”