Don Showalter

2011-12 USA Developmental National Team Head Coach

After leading the USA men to gold medals in the 2009 FIBA Americas U16 Championship and the 2010 FIBA U17 World Championship, USA Basketball on Jan. 11 announced that Don Showalter (Mid-Prairie H.S., Iowa) will return as head coach of the 2011-12 USA Men's Developmental National Team.

"I think the biggest challenge we will face with this younger group is to help them understand the level to which they need to elevate their game," said Showalter, who was honored as a USA Basketball Developmental Coach of the Year in 2009 and 2010. "We will try to get them to understand that teamwork is the most important part of what we are going to try and do to win another gold medal. If they can buy into the teamwork part, you always have a chance to be successful."

Showalter has turned in several gold-medal coaching performances for USA Basketball. In the summer of 2010, he led the USA to an 8-0 record and gold medal in the inaugural FIBA U17 World Championship for Men July 2-11 in Hamburg, Germany. The USA topped its opponents by an incredible 34.9 points per game while recording an eye-popping average of 107.5 points per contest.

Prior to the 2010 Worlds, Showalter and the USA wrapped up a 1-1 mark in exhibition play in Kaunus, Lithuania, including a 95-82 loss to the Russian U18 National Team and a 92-79 win over the Lithuanian U17 National Team.

Showalter helped the USA earn its place in the 2010 U17 World Championship following a 5-0 record and gold medal in the qualifying tournament -- the 2009 FIBA Americas U16 Championship -- in Mendoza, Argentina.

In addition to winning gold medals for the USA, Showalter has returned to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., for several training camps, including a camp for the 2011-12 USA Basketball Men's Development National Team on Oct. 9-10, 2010. He conducted the inaugural USA Basketball Development National Team training camp from June 6-9 in 2009, as well as a mini-camp from Oct. 10-11, 2009.

Showalter was the USA head coach in the 1998 Nike Hoop Summit and for the North Team in the 1998 USA Basketball Men's Youth Development Festival, he was the coordinator for a youth clinic hosted by USA Basketball in New York in 2004 and he served as chair of the USA Basketball Cadet and Youth Committee (now the Developmental National Team Committee) from 2001-08.

Overall, Showalter has compiled a 15-4 record (.789 winning percentage) in four head coaching assignments for the red, white and blue.

One of the nation's most accomplished high school coaches, Showalter completed his 36th year (1974-present) as a high school head coach in 2009-10. Through the 2009-10 season, he had compiled a 540-268 record (.668 winning percentage) overall and won 16 district titles.

The head coach at Mid-Prairie since 1984-85, Showalter boasts of a 432-179 (.707) mark there as of Jan. 11, 2011, including five trips to the Iowa state tournament, and his 2011-12 squad is off to a 8-3 start.

Showalter earned his ninth the Iowa Basketball Coaches Association's Coach of the Year award in 2010 after leading Mid-Prairie to a 20-6 finish.

Don Showalter's USA Basketball Coaching Synopsis