Nixa Public Schools is announcing the retirement of Jay Osborne as head coach of the Nixa boys basketball team at the end of the 2021-22 season, after 30 years of working at Nixa. At the end of the 2021-22 year, Osborne will have served a total of 35 years in education, with 33 years of that as a head basketball coach.
Osborne enters the 2021-22 season with a career record of 647-242, averaging over 20 wins per season and a .728 winning percentage. His teams have won 12 District Championships, played in three final fours, won 45 tournament titles, including 13 Nixa Invitational Tournament titles, and 7 Blue and Gold titles.
His 1999 Nixa team won the Missouri 3A State Championship, with his 2002 team placing third, and his 2012 team going 30 -2 and finishing as the Class 5 State runner-up. He has twice received the Missouri Coach of the Year award in 1999 and 2012.
Coach Osborne is the all-time winningest coach (75-25) in the history of the 74-year-old Greenwood Blue and Gold Tournament. From 2010 – 2014, his Nixa teams won an unprecedented five consecutive Blue and Gold titles.
In December of 2019, the Nixa boys basketball program was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.
Prior to his position at Nixa, he compiled a 51-7 record in two seasons at Pleasant Hope, Missouri, including a 1990 Blue and Gold Championship and a 1992 State Quarterfinal appearance.
His first head coaching job was at Solomon, Kansas, in the 1989-90 school year, guiding that team to its first winning season in over ten years and a conference championship. He began his career in Willow Springs, Missouri, as an assistant for two seasons under Brent Colley, a Missouri Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame inductee.
In April of 2015, the Missouri Basketball Coaches Association inducted Osborne into their Hall of Fame.
Brandon Clark, activities and athletics director, stated, “Jay’s dedication to both basketball and Nixa is something that will be a part of the school’s legacy and the foundation for a program that will be successful for years in the future. However, Jay’s impact on his players and their lives is something that will leave a ripple effect for generations.”
With the retirement of Osborne, Brock Blansit, current boys basketball assistant coach, will be named the new head coach beginning in the 2022-23 school year.
Blansit’s replacement will be announced later this school year.
