(From MSSU Lions Athletic News)
Robert Corn and Tongula Givens Steddum will be part of the 2020 MIAA Hall of Fame Class, the organization announced today.
Corn and Givens Steddum are part of a group of 11 individuals and five teams to be inducted in this year's class. The time and date for the induction ceremony are still yet to be determined.
As a basketball player, Robert Corn was a tenacious defender who provided the leadership that enabled Missouri Southern to reach the quarterfinals of the NAIA Basketball Championships in 1978. Co-captain of the 1977-78 team, Corn helped the Lions finish 27-9 and capture both the CSIC and NAIA District 16 championships.
But that performance as a player pales to what the Benton, Ill., native accomplished as coach of the Lions. Corn retired in 2014 following 25 years as the head coach at his alma mater, including a 1999-00 season that saw the Lions finish with a 30-3 record and an Elite Eight win in the NCAA D-II Tournament in Louisville, Kentucky. Corn left the program as the winningest coach with 413 career wins. He currently is third-best in all-time wins by a men's basketball coach in the MIAA. He guided the Lions to two MIAA regular-season titles (1999-2000 and 2010-2011), as well as three MIAA Tournament Titles (1993, 2000, 2014). He coached the team to five NCAA Tournament Appearances in 1993, 2000, 2011, 2012, and 2014.
Corn went on to work in the Development Office at Southern following his retirement as a coach and retired from that position last year. Corn and his wife, Cindy have two sons, Rob and Scott and reside in Joplin.
Givens Steddum last competed in track & field as a Missouri Southern State University student-athlete in 1995, yet her name continues to dominate the school's history of track & field. Givens still holds many of the top 10 outdoor marks in both the triple jump and the long jump. Indoors, Givens has many of the top ten marks ever in the long and triple jump. She is the only female in school history to surpass 41 feet in the outdoor triple jump and one of two to surpass 20 feet in the long jump.
Givens Steddum was an eight-time All-America at MSSU, including national championships in the triple jump in 1994 (outdoor) and 1995 (indoor). She collected three MIAA high-point individual awards during her Southern career and held each Southern record in the triple jump and long jump at the time of her graduation and held the MIAA meet record for the outdoor triple jump until 2018.
In 1993, Givens Steddum was named MSSU's Female Athlete of the Year and claimed the honor again in 1995, the same year she also won the E.O. & Virginia Humphrey Award, given to the institution's outstanding student-athlete of the year.
In the 2003 indoor season, she had the third-best U.S. women's triple jump mark and the eighth-best long jump. Givens Steddum trained at MSSU in 2000 and went on to qualify and compete in the 2000 Olympic Trials. She also qualified for the 2004 Olympic Trials.
Givens Steddum and her husband Chris, have a son, Colby and reside in Dallas, Texas.
With Corn and Givens' induction, Southern has 11 individuals and one team in the MIAA Hall of Fame.
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