July 26, 2007
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Vanderbilt men’s basketball head coach Kevin Stallings and women’s basketball mentor Melanie Balcomb commented Thursday on the passing of Wake Forest head coach Skip Prosser.
“What a tragic loss for the Prosser family, the Wake Forest University community and all of college basketball,” Stallings said. “Skip Prosser was truly one of the really good guys in our business and all of us are devastated by this.”
“Skip was a better man than he was a coach, and he was certainly one of the best coaches around,” Balcomb said. “He had a huge impact on me, both on the court and in life. Skip had an amazing ability to lift people up, and I feel blessed to have spent time with him. My deepest sympathies go out to his wife and their two boys.”
Prosser, who had worked as a collegiate head coach for the past 14 seasons (291-146), including the last six at Wake Forest (126-68), coached the Demon Deacons to an 88-78 win over Vanderbilt in Winston Salem on Nov. 21, 2006. Wake Forest is scheduled to play Vanderbilt this coming season at Memorial Gymnasium.
The friendship between Stallings and Prosser dates back to the mid-1980s when both were assistant coaches in the Midwest. Stallings was an assistant coach at Purdue for six years (1983-1988) and Kansas for five seasons (1989-1993) before he became the head coach at Illinois State in 1994. Stallings has coached at Vanderbilt since the 2000 campaign. Prosser was an assistant at Xavier for nine seasons (1985-1993) before he became head coach at Loyola (Md.) for one year. He returned to Xavier as its head coach for seven years beginning in 1995. Prosser had worked at Wake Forest since the start of the 2001-02 campaign.
Balcomb was the head coach of the women’s basketball program at Xavier (1996-2002) during Prosser’s tenure at the university located in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Prosser is survived by his wife, Nancy, and their two sons: Scott and Mark.
