St. Ben’s hired Mike Durbin as their head basketball coach in 1986 and he’s still their head coach today.  Mike joined me on WJON for our “My Life” series.  Mike grew up in a small town in Ohio called Howard. Mike is the oldest of 9 children.  He has 7 sisters and 1 brother.  Mike grew up on a farm, his dad worked for standard oil and his mother was home with the kids.  He credits his work ethic to his parents and countless hours of farm work he did before and after school as a kid.  Durbin says the family had livestock and more than a 160 acres.

Mike went to East North High School where he played both basketball and football.  He says he comes from a non athletic family with the exception of his younger sister, Melinda.  Durbin says he was very average in both basketball and football but he really loved both.  He worked at a gas station while in high school to raise money for college.

Mike recalls praying for a brother prior to his mother giving birth to his sister Melinda.  He says Melinda turned out to be “the brother he never had”.  His actual brother was born later.  Mike bonded with Melinda over their shared love of sports.  Melinda was very talented and became a very good basketball player.  She later went on to be a basketball player in college.  Mike says she was the first person he coached.

Mike really enjoyed sports and decided he wanted to go to college to be a sports broadcaster.  He majored in communications at Kent State University.  Mike recalls never wanting to take the route of majoring in physical education and teaching and coaching in a high school.  Durbin did some play-by-play and radio work in college.

After college graduation Mike opened a video taping service in Mount Vernon, Ohio.  He had VHS tapes for rental.  Durbin says he would deliver this tapes to customer’s homes and pick them up.  He had moderate success until the big chains of video tape stores came into the market.  Durbin says he realized this wasn’t financially sustainable for him.  At this time he was a volunteer football coach at his former high school.  The following year it became a paid job and he also became an assistant girls basketball coach at the school.  His sister was on the team.

Mike recalls after his sister graduated he took a job as a volunteer assistant at Mount Vernon Nazarene College.  The head coach there was also the volleyball coach.  Mike says his position became paid and he took on the recruiting responsibilities.   He started to think he could now do this as a profession at the college level.  Mike was encouraged to get his master’s degree, which he did at Ashland College.

Durbin was 25 years old when he took an Interim girls basketball head coaching job at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio.  He knew this would be a 1-year opportunity but it led him to pursue jobs that year.  Mike applied and was hired to be the head coach at the College of St. Benedict in 1986.  He says St. Ben’s had only been in the MIAC for 1-year and Claire Lynch Hall was just 1 year old.

Durbin recalls meeting his wife, Teri his first day working at St. Ben’s.  He says they started dating later that fall.  She is from Belgrade, Minnesota.  Mike says many things just fell in to place for him.  He says one of his early responsibilities was to recruit students to the University and if they had a good basketball team, that would be a bonus.

In Mike’s 2nd year at St. Ben’s he recalls recruiting a couple program changing recruits.  The two were Joyce Spanier from Belgrade and Mickey Jurewicz from Shakopee.  Spanier was a 5’8 guard while Jurewicz was a 6’2 post player.  Durbin says after the success they had that first year with them, great players just came after that.

Mike is in his 38th season at St. Ben’s.  In 37 seasons, Durbin has coached 72 All-MIAC First Team selections, 54 honorable mention athletes, 15 players named to the All-MIAC Defensive Team and 15 all-first year team picks.  He became the 17^th active coach at all levels of the NCAA to reach the 700-win milestone on Feb. 24, 2021.

If you’d like to listen to my 4-part conversation with Mike Durbin, it is available below.

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