Rider Takes Challenge From CLU : College basketball: Out of coaching for two years, he replaces Mike Dunlap, who led the Kingsmen to a 25-3 season before resigning.

Rich Rider, two years removed from his last coaching job, will be replacing the most successful coach in Cal Lutheran’s basketball history, but he is looking forward to the challenge.

The school announced Wednesday that Rider, 47, will replace Mike Dunlap, who guided the Kingsmen to an 80-55 record during his five years at the school, including a school-record 25-3 mark this season.

Dunlap, 36, announced last fall that this would be his last season at Cal Lutheran because he had signed a five-year contract to coach the Adelaide 36ers of Australia’s National Basketball League. The NBL season starts next month.

“The key word will be continuity,” Rider said. “Coach Dunlap has done a great job there and I just want to continue what he’s started.”

Rider has been an athletic director in the Boise (Ida.) School District for the past two years but has 22 seasons of coaching experience at the collegiate level.

He was an assistant at Boise State from 1983-92 after a one-year stint as an assistant at Cal State Bakersfield.

From 1973-82, he was the head coach at Chapman College (now Chapman University), where he compiled a 136-94 record. The Panthers posted a 19-10 record during the 1976-77 season and qualified for the NCAA Division II playoffs.

Before that, he was an assistant at Utah from 1970-73.

“Once coaching is in your blood, it’s in your blood,” Rider said. “I had an opportunity to move into an athletic administrative position two years ago and I took it, but I knew I would get back into coaching if the right opportunity presented itself. I jumped at this chance.”

Rider was one of two finalists for the job. The other was Bob Hawking, an assistant at Cal State Fullerton and a former coach at Simi Valley High.

Rider and Hawking comprised half of a final four list which included Bill Whiting, an assistant at Occidental College, and Dave Bale, an assistant at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Wash.

Rider will take over a program that advanced to the round of 16 of the NCAA Division III playoffs this season. However, only two of the top seven players from that team are expected to return next season.

Damon Ridley (20.6 points, 5.2 rebounds, 3.2 assists per game), Derrick Clark (15.9 ppg, 7.6 rpg) and Paul Tapp (12.5 ppg) are seniors. Junior Rupert Sapwell (13.1 ppg, 7.0 rpg) will graduate in May.

Jason Smith, a 6-foot-5 freshman swingman from Melbourne, Australia, averaged 9.0 points and 4.7 rebounds, but said Wednesday that he expects to be playing for a different school next season.

Sophomore point guard Dave Ulloa (9.3 ppg, 4.3 apg) and junior center Paul LaMott (6.7 ppg, 4.0 rpg) are the starters who are expected to return.

“It will be a challenge,” Rider said. “I know that Mike had a senior-laden team this season, but I’m looking forward to getting started.”

Rider was a four-year starter at Northeast Missouri State University and earned undergraduate degrees from the school in business administration (1968) and in physical education (1970).