LORMAN — Willie McGowan Sr. has 701 wins as coach of Alcorn State University baseball.

But 40 years ago, McGowan didn’t even know he would see a baseball diamond as a coach at Alcorn State.

McGowan, who recorded his 700th baseball win March 10 in the Braves’ doubleheader sweep of Tougaloo College, originally came to Alcorn State to coach the defensive backs on the Braves’ football team.

“When I got here they threw baseball on me too,” he said. “I was an assistant for two years, and then I took over the program. But I was still coaching football, too. They said they had no money and needed people to pull double duty, but I was the only one pulling double duty at the time.”

McGowan, 69, said he would have had more baseball wins in his 38 years as head coach, but the Braves played the minimum required 30 games a year because most of the school’s focus went to football.

Meanwhile, other teams in the area were playing 50 or 55 games.

“I had to be at practice and spring football, and then I had to run down to my baseball field and try to get them ready to play, too,” McGowan said.

McGowan retired from coaching on the gridiron in 1994, but he said he has no regrets about coaching two sports at once. Being a versatile athlete was how he got to college in the first place.

McGowan played baseball and football in high school and got a scholarship to play both sports at Alcorn.

“My parents didn’t have any money, and it was the only way I could go to college,” he said. “This has been my life ever since I was in junior high, to play ball. It’s just a continuation.”

While he’s had offers over his 40 years to coach at other schools, McGowan said he’s never really considered them.

Althought he says he could have coached professional baseball or football, McGowan wanted to stay at Alcorn because his wife Doris also had a job, and he saw it as a great place to raise his two sons, Willie Jr. and Reginald.

“I’ve been fortunate to stay at one school this long,” McGowan said. “A lot of coaches don’t have that opportunity. I think the reason I did is because I believe when you’re working for a person, you make sure you give them a good day’s work every day. You put your heart and soul into it.”

And 40 years later, he has no regrets, although he has seen many changes at the university.

“When I was on football scholarship, we had to work two hours a day. We were just like janitors,” McGowan said. “We didn’t have as many buildings on campus, and when I first got here there was only one care on campus. We had about 200 to 250 people, and everybody knew everybody.

“Now the school has grown. All the names on the buildings, the teachers and the presidents, I know those people. We have better facilities, and everything’s bigger.”

McGowan said when he first started coaching baseball he never considered how many wins he could record.

He was just trying to field a decent team.

“During that time, we had a tremendous football team, but with baseball we didn’t put inot it what we were supposed to,” he said. “All I wanted to do was try to win and not make the institution look so bad, and that’s what I did. I used to tell my athletic director, ‘We’ve got to put something in baseball, because it’s got my name on it.

“But the more I coached and the more I won, the more I started looking at the records in the NCAA and in Mississippi.”

Now McGowan is fifth in wins behind Mississippi State coach Ron Polk, Jackson State’s Robert Braddy, Sr., William Carey’s Robby Halford and Belhaven College coach Hill Denson.

Polk has a career 1,350 wins as a head coach.

And while McGowan is unsure if he’ll ever catch up to that milestone, he’s had a good time leading the Braves.

“It’s been a long time,” he said. “I’m looking to retire, but I feel like I’ve got three or four more good years in me. I’m just playing it day by day — I might retire at anytime.”