Valley Basketball's Jim Horn Earns Coach of the Year

Men's Head Coach Receives Honor from MCCAA Western Conference

KALAMAZOO, Mich. - Jim Horn, head men's basketball coach at Kalamazoo Valley Community College, has been named Coach of the Year for the Western Conference of the Michigan Community College Athletic Association (MCCAA).

The accolade comes on the heels of Horn's players being declared Western conference champions for the recently concluded 2022-23 season by finishing No. 1.

The men's basketball team also had the honor of competing in the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Region 12 District C Tournament semifinals this season, during the weekend of March 10. Ultimately, however, they fell to Macomb Community College by the score of 71-56.

"After eight program-building seasons, especially working through the adversity of COVID cancelling the team's 2020-21 season and the COVID mitigation requirements during the 2021-22 season, Jim Horn has earned the recognition of Western Conference Coach of the Year for the Michigan Community College Athletic Association by winning the conference with a 10-2 record and 23-7 overall," said Russ Panico, athletic director at Kalamazoo Valley Community College. "I'm so proud of what Coach Horn has accomplished in his tenure as head coach and I look forward to seeing the team he builds for the 2023-24 season."

Coach Horn said there was a singular strategy. "I would say our staff and our players really bought into what we were trying to do this year on the defensive end and that's pretty much how we won all of our games," Horn said. "We had three guys on the All-Conference Defensive Team. That's pretty unheard of. Usually, a team will have one or two on the All-Conference Defensive Team. I give a lot of credit to our coaching staff and players for our hard work this year."

Horn accepted the Kalamazoo Valley men's basketball head coach position in April 2015. He had coached for 12 years at the collegiate level and 11 years at the high school level, including several seasons as Portage Northern High School men's basketball coach. Horn was a high-school basketball standout at the former First Assembly Christian School in Portage, Michigan. He went on to play basketball at Polk Community College in Florida, and fondly looks back on it as one of the best experiences of his athletic career. He later played at Stetson University in Florida.