Pacific coach Bob Thomason hasn’t been feeling so reflective as of late.
Last April, Thomason announced that the 2012-13 basketball season would be his last. After a quarter century at the helm of his alma mater, he decided that someone else would usher Pacific into a new era in the West Coast Conference.
But he’s had nearly a year to reflect and he has gone through almost all of the emotions that one can go through in this situation. Thomason is still most focused on basketball.
“Since I decided last April to do this, it’s kind of like I’ve gone through that already. It’s not like a surprise or something really quick, like I just announced it,” Thomason said. “So I’ve kind of already done that in my mind. Looking forward to coaching and hopefully we can get a little better.”
Only a handful of games are left of a career that has been one of the most respected in college basketball. Saturday afternoon, Thomason will be honored in his final game at the Spanos Center, when Pacific takes on Big West Champion Long Beach State at 4 p.m. on Prime Ticket. While Thomason is still working toward winning those games and extending that career through March, it’s impossible to ignore the culmination of such a successful run.
Just seven other Division I coaches are longer-tenured than Thomason, with two being Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim and Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski. He helped put the Big West on the map and keep the conference there after key departures of schools like UNLV and New Mexico.
He has the most wins in the Big West, earning his 432nd Thursday night with a win over UC Irvine in his second-to-last game at Stockton’s Spanos Center, and the most Big West Conference wins with 247. He has led the Tigers to six Big West Championships, four Big West Tournament championships and four NCAA Tournaments.
“I think we gave the town and our program an identity. That’s probably been the best,” Thomason said. “For our program to gain pride outside of Stockton, that’s a great feeling.”
The Tigers (18-12, 12-5) are just two wins away from 20, which would be the 10th time Thomason has guided a team to a 20-win season.
In 2003 and 2004, the Tigers became the first Big West team to post back-to-back NCAA tournament wins, reaching the second round both years.
“The best team I ever coached was the (2004-05) 27-4 team that went 18-0 in conference and made it past the first round of the tournament. That was a fantastic team and we were 13-1 on the road that year. How many Division I teams are 13-1 on the road?” Thomason said. “That was a special team.”
Thomason’s record and reputation both on and off the court did certainly attract bigger programs. He was approached by some Pac-12 schools and even interviewed with Oregon State in the early 2000s. Big money schools called but it wasn’t about the money. The Bay Area native whose entire family has stayed somewhat local ultimately decided that Pacific was home.
“The only job I was interested in at the time was Oregon State and I did interview for it and talk and it was a great experience,” Thomason said. “But the best thing that happened to me was not getting that job because the next three years was when we had our run through the NCAAs.”
Thomason returned to his alma mater in 1988. His took his licks in a first season that turned out to be anything other than what he expected.
Domingo Rosario, his best returning player, had trouble getting back into the country after visiting his Dominican Republic home. Another one of his top players signed a baseball contract, his offices didn’t have heating or air conditioning and he had to share his secretary with 13 other varsity sports.
He did, however, have Dell Demps, the guard who went on to become one of the most prolific scorers in Pacific history and is now the GM of the New Orleans Hornets. And he did have an assistant who shed light on him at the end of the season by telling him, “Coach, we can’t be worried about what we don’t have, we just have to change what we have.”
Ten years later, Thomason found himself grooming an NBA lottery pick in Michael Olowakandi, who went from an unknown walk-on to the first pick in the 1998 NBA Draft.
Olowakandi’s story has always been one of draft lore – a seven-footer with an international background and no basketball experience. He enrolled at Pacific and called up Thomason, asking to play. He played four seasons, leading his team to the NCAA Tournament in 1998. With each game of his senior seasons, his draft stock rose.
“I was really proud but I was still nervous about him going that high because of the expectations put on him,” Thomason said. “Most great No. 1 picks have been great players for 14 years and he’s been a great player for one year. He just got a little too high too fast.”
However, seeing Olowakandi go with the first pick was still one of the proudest moments of Thomason’s career.
“There’s programs like Duke and Arizona that had never had a first player in the draft. I go, ‘My goodness,’” Thomason said. “It’s still a great story though.”
Thomason also groomed another player, his son Scott. Scott played for Pacific during the Olowakandi years and took a page from his father’s book and became a coach. He is currently the head coach of Sierra High in Manteca.
“It’s fun to watch him coach even though it drives me nuts that I have practically no input in the games,” Thomason said. “Know I know how my wife feels about my games going to his games. It’s a lot harder to sit in the stands.”
Thomason has already wrapped up all of the loose ends. He has endorsed his longtime assistant, Ron Verlin to take his place and he has readied himself for what will be some bittersweet moments in the upcoming weeks.
All that is left to reflect on is his legacy. In addition to winning, he has graduated 96 percent of his players and has never been hit with any NCAA sanctions.
Thomason’s legacy will be that of a coach who did things both his own way, and the right way.
“I think it goes back to how you believe in coaching,” Thomason said. “But once you understand the rules and what’s right and wrong, to me it’s not a real big deal to do it the right way. What else do you have? You’ve got to be solid to yourself and when I leave coaching I want to make sure that it worked out that way.”
