Iowa men’s basketball assistant coach Kirk Speraw retiring

Iowa men’s basketball assistant coach Kirk Speraw announced his retirement, effective June 30.

Speraw has been on McCaffery’s staff since McCaffery’s first season at Iowa 12 years ago.

Speraw played at Iowa from 1976-79 and began his coaching career as a graduate assistant under Hall of Fame head coach Lute Olson on Iowa’s 1980 Final Four team.

“Kirk has been the ultimate professional and an important part of our basketball program since I arrived in Iowa City,” said McCaffery in a news release. “Kirk was well-respected by the players and was one of the key components of rebuilding the program. His knowledge of the game and relationships that he developed with the players, families and fans will be greatly missed. It has been an honor to work alongside Kirk all these years.”

“I was fortunate that Coach Olson gave me my start in coaching here at the University of Iowa and I am grateful that Coach McCaffery and Gary Barta brought me back to my alma mater to finish my coaching career with a Big Ten championship,” Speraw said in the same release.

Speraw was an assistant coach at Denver University for two years, the head coach at Pensacola Junior College from 1988-1990, was an assistant coach at Florida Southern and the University of Florida, and then was head coach at the University of Central Florida from 1994 to 2010. His teams reached the NCAA tournament four times and he was Conference USA Coach of the Year in 2007.

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