Watson continues to right the ship at Southern Indiana

USI Coach Rodney Watson

EVANSVILLE, IN – (Pat Hickey, Evansville Courier Press. Please click on link to read the full story. Here is an excerpt) For seven years, Rodney Watson took advantage of each opportunity to drive from Evansville to Carterville, Illinois, to spend time with his wife and children. That was the challenge he accepted when taking the University of Southern Indiana men’s basketball head coaching job in May 2009. His wife, Carol, was a junior high school counselor and couldn’t relocate as she was close to earning her pension. Two of their four children, twins Blake and Olivia, were settled in school there and they had recently remodeled their home. “Eighty-seven miles,” Watson noted of the distance between their family. Jerry Lawrence says thanks for Dee’s care Watson made that drive so many times he could practically do it in his sleep by year three. But for the past two, it started to feel like the roads grew longer and longer each trip. It coincided with back-to-back seasons that USI did not make the NCAA Division II Tournament. Screaming Eagle fans hadn’t endured that since 1991-92. Some of the diehards have become restless.