The Bobcats began filling their assistant coaching staff and adding basketball operations personnel on April 2 as Gary Kloppenburg and John Outlaw were named assistant coaches, Drew Perry as video coordinator and Mark Coffelt as assistant athletic trainer and equipment manager. The remainder of the team’s coaching and training staff, including the lead assistant coach and head athletic trainer, will be determined following the 2003-04 NBA season.
“I’m very pleased to add this talented group of professionals to our staff. We’re fortunate to add two experienced assistant coaches with a successful track record of positive player-coach relationships, strong work ethics, dedication and loyalty,” Bickerstaff said. “They will be positive components in a well-rounded coaching staff, and each brings a different set of talents to our organization. I’ve known both Gary and John for a number of years and I know they share the philosophies that we’ve already embraced with our basketball operations staff.
“We’ve become very familiar and comfortable with Drew through our work with him at XOS Technologies and we are confident that he will provide us excellent service with his input and video preparation,” Bickerstaff said. “Mark and I worked together in the past and I know the value he can bring the Bobcats and how deeply he cares for the medical well-being of players.”
Kloppenburg has a strong basketball background at many levels, including NBA, WNBA, international, minor league and college. He joins the Bobcats after serving as assistant coach for the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury, and he was assistant coach for three seasons on the staff of the WNBA’s Seattle Storm. Kloppenburg worked for the Toronto Raptors as an advance scout from 1997-99, where he was responsible for scouting and determining game plans of Western Conference opponents.
For two seasons he was an assistant coach and assistant director of player personnel in the Continental Basketball Association, first for the Rockford Lightning and then for the Quad City Thunder. Kloppenburg was interim head coach for four games in 1999-2000 with Rockford and coached current NBA player Earl Boykins. In the summer of 1999, he was head coach for Panteras de Miranda of the Venezuelan Professional League and he has conducted basketball clinics in Greece, Belgium, Iceland and Japan. His coaching career began at Lassen College, where he was head coach of the women’s team for four seasons and head coach of the men’s team for six seasons.
The son of former Seattle SuperSonics Assistant Coach Bob Kloppenburg, he graduated from
UC-San Diego with a degree in Spanish Literature and he is bilingual in English and Spanish. Kloppenburg has three children, Sonja (22), Ian (16), and Carlotta (11).
Outlaw possesses extensive experience in the NBA and the NFL and is in his fourth term alongside Bickerstaff. The two first worked together in 1990 with the Denver Nuggets, where Outlaw served as director of community relations for four seasons before he moved into the role of director of college scouting. Outlaw joined the staff of the Washington Wizards in 1997 as assistant coach and advance scout and he was also assistant coach and director of player personnel for the St. Louis Swarm of the International Basketball League when the club won back-to-back league titles.
His professional career began in the NFL as a cornerback for 11 seasons with the New England Patriots (1968-73) and the Philadelphia Eagles (1973-79). Following his playing career he served as defensive coordinator at North Carolina Central University for 11 seasons and, while there, served as director for the National Youth Sports Program for two years.
Most recently, Outlaw worked as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Education in the office of safe and drug free schools. A standout collegiate football player at Jackson State University, he and his wife Linda are the parents of one son, J.J., a football player at Villanova University.
Perry returns to the NBA in the capacity of video coordinator after working for XOS Technologies, a company that provides video software to several NBA and college basketball teams. In his two-year stint with the company, it achieved a 96% growth in client base and he successfully sold the product to teams throughout the NBA.
From 1996-2002 he was the video coordinator for the Charlotte Hornets and Sting, assisting the coaching and basketball operations staffs with preparation and evaluation of players and teams using video and statistical data. During his tenure Perry also served as director of scouting for the Sting in 1999. A 1992 graduate of Wake Forest with a degree in Mathematics, he also earned a master’s degree in sport management from University of Richmond.
Coffelt worked with Bickerstaff as head athletic trainer and equipment manager for the St. Louis Swarm during the 2000-01 season and the following season he served as head athletic trainer and equipment manager for the Mobile Revelers in the National Basketball Development League.
Most recently, Coffelt worked as an athletic trainer at the HealthSouth Outpatient Therapy clinic in his native St. Louis, where he provided physical therapy for patients at the clinic and also served as athletic trainer for a local high school. He worked previously on the athletic training staff at University of Missouri. A 1998 graduate of Lindenwood University, Coffelt is married to his wife, Amy.
The Bobcats, who select fourth in the 2004 NBA Draft following an expansion draft of players from other NBA teams, will play their inaugural season in 2004-05 at the Charlotte Coliseum before moving to Charlotte’s new Uptown Arena beginning with the 2005-06 NBA season.