Stu Ordman began going to state basketball tournaments in 1973 when he was the co-captain of the team at New Trier East High School that reached the state finals in Illinois.

He won two state titles as the girls basketball coach at Leavenworth High School in Kansas in 1988 and '89, and he reached the semifinals of the boys state tournament in Kansas when he was coaching at Shawnee Mission Northwest.

Now he's got Cedar Rapids Jefferson in the Class 4A boys state tournament for the third straight year and for the fourth time since he began coaching the J-Hawks in 1997.

Ordman has been coaching for 33 years and passionately enjoys what he's doing.

"It's part of my identity, I guess," he said Friday. "This has been a very rewarding year with this group of young men at Jefferson."

The J-Hawks (15-8) will be heavy underdogs when they face No. 1 Ankeny (23-0) in the quarterfinals of the state tournament on Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. at the Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, but it's a role they embrace and have overcome before.

Jefferson upset No. 3 Cedar Falls in the substate finals this past Tuesday at the McLeod Center in Cedar Falls to earn the trip to Des Moines, where the challenge will be even greater. Ankeny features Ted Friedman, a 6-foot-9 center, and the undefeated Hawks boast an average margin of victory of 22 points per game.

"I think there's two things we can do," said Ordman. "One is try to find some human growth hormone real quick. The second one is maybe bite them in the knee. I'm kind of running out of ideas after that."

Ordman was kidding, of course. He enjoys a challenge and has welcomed them nearly his entire life.

He was an English Education major at the University of Iowa and did his student-teaching at an inner-city high school in Kansas City, accepting the challenge of working with under-served kids. He began his coaching career there and worked two practices a day, first as a varsity assistant and then as a freshman coach.

It wasn't long before many of the young teachers at Kansas City Central got "riffed" in a reduction in force, so Ordman accepted a job as the assistant sophomore coach with the boys program at Leavenworth before becoming the successful girls coach there.

He spent seven years at Leavenworth - "the high school, not the prison" - before moving to Shawnee Mission Northwest.

"It was called by basketball coaches the 'Toilet Bowl' of boys basketball," he said. "They'd only gone to state twice in 25 years and maybe had seven winning seasons.

"One of my fellow coaches said, 'The only reason you got this job is because no one else wanted it.' That first year we went 1-and-19, and I started four sophomores. And the next year we went to state."

Ordman had spent five years at Shawnee Mission Northwest when tragedy struck his family. His wife Ginny's sister, who lived in the Cedar Rapids area, was killed in a car accident, leaving behind six children.

"We decided to move up here and try to help," he said.

Ordman got the job at Cedar Rapids Jefferson in 1997 and has been there ever since. He led the J-Hawks to the state tournament in 1999, then again in 2010 and 2011.

This is Jefferson's third straight trip to the state tournament, the third-best streak among the Class 4A field. Linn-Mar is playing in the state tournament for the ninth straight time, a state record, and Sioux City East has made it four straight years.

Ordman is proud of the streak, which seems to have gone quietly unnoticed in some circles.

"We've had to change how we play every year," he said. "There are a couple of programs that have been so talented, they basically can play the same style every year, because they just have all these Division I players.

"We've had to adjust to the personnel that we've had, to maximize the things they do well and try to minimize the things they don't do so well. So each one has been very gratifying."

The 2010 and 2011 clubs featured 6-foot-9 center Jarrod Uthoff, who won the "Mr. Basketball" award in Iowa last season and is being red-shirted this year at the University of Wisconsin. This year's club features point guard Taylor Olson, who has started on all three state tournament teams along with Alec Saunders.

The J-Hawks were heavy underdogs against Cedar Falls in the substate finals, yet prevailed in overtime.

"This has been a very resilient group of young men," said Ordman. "I could count on them to really compete. It wasn't a surprise, although Cedar Falls is a formidable opponent, but it was quite rewarding to see this group pull it off.

"It was neat to see how the student-body and community have acknowledged that these guys are pretty darn competitive."

The J-Hawks practiced at Kirkwood Community College on Friday, getting accustomed to the 94-foot court they'll see at the state tournament. High school courts are only 84 feet long, so perhaps the "little mosquitoes" from Jefferson will be able to use the longer court to their advantage in Des Moines.

Ordman will be proud of his guys, win or lose.

"We have some tough, hard-working young men from the southwest side of Cedar Rapids who embrace our philosophy of hard work, service to others and being accountable," he said. "It's also a testament to their parents in how they've been raised."

Ordman and his assistant coaches are still working on the game plan for Ankeny.

"I'll figure out what's going to work," he said. "We'll just have to mix the tea leaves and see what comes up."