Pacific Digest 2 - Dec. 2006-Jan. 2007
For the Love of the Game
In 18 seasons, Bob Thomason has won more games—310—than any basketball coach at the University of Pacific. He has been the Big West coach of the year five times. The last three years, his teams won 75 games. His job is basketball, but his passion is playing golf and poker. There are only a few things he loves more than this city, Pacific, and those who play for him. All this you probably know.
But here are a dozen things you might not know about 57-year-old Bob Thomason, Pacific’s most-famous, quiet, and often private coach.
Keep your eyes on the road
If you are sitting next to the coach on a plane, bring napkins. “He’ll start drawing plays on napkins, on scratch paper, on used newspapers,” said assistant coach and former player Aaron Wolizcko. “He doesn’t use most of them, but every once in a while, something new will sneak in at practice from a napkin. When I see it, I know it’s a Bob Thomason original.” And if the coach is a passenger in your car, “watch out,” says Wolizcko. “Coach starts typing in his computer and then he’ll tap you on the shoulder while you’re driving, and say, ‘Hey, look at this, whatdaya think, whatdaya think?’”
Finding solitude within
Sometimes, minutes before the start of a game, you can find Thomason off by himself in the locker room, reading the Bible. It happens when players are warming up and Thomason’s assistants are overseeing the pre-game warm-ups. Friends say it’s a way for him to focus his thoughts.
One blue eye, one brown
That’s “Misty Blue,” one of two dogs in the Thomason household. “Five years ago, he was shopping for a dog on the Internet,” said Jerri, his wife of 34 years. “He fell in love with that dog, so he called the owner, flew to Madison, Wisconsin, and brought this Australian Shepherd back on the plane. She’s Bob’s dog. Our dogs walk with us every morning.”
He’ll always be Bobby to me
Stan Trent, 58, drives the Delta Charter bus for Pacific’s basketball team. He doesn’t have to. He does it because of the coach. They’ve been friends since 5th grade. “He was an usher in my wedding 37 years ago,” said Trent. “But we were friends long before that. There were four of us who hung out together in high school—me, coach, Craig Anderson and Bobby Newkirk. They all played basketball, but I was the one with the car. I was a year older, so I had a car first—a 1955 T-Bird. I try to remember to call him coach, but he’ll always be Bobby to me.”
Shop ’til you drop
The coach loves to shop. Mostly golf shops, but it’s not unusual to see him with his wife on any Sunday, browsing through a, yes, Bed, Bath & Beyond—not the place you generally find a lot of head basketball coaches. Most say it’s simply a case of Bob Thomason being a family man, something he cherishes. “Honey, there’s a 500-thread-count set of sheets down aisle four…”
‘Coach, you won’t believe this…’
Game day. March 4, 2006. Cal-Poly at Pacific. After a morning shoot-around, Bob Thomason decides to stop at home before the game. He sees his golf buddies--Jerome James, Mike Smith, and Len Pruss on the No. 3 tee at Brookside Country Club. So the coach decides to stop to visit. “He stopped his car and walked over to say hello,” said James. The coach grabbed a Callaway 9-wood out of Smith’s bag, teed up a ball and fired away on the par-3, 165-yard hole. “The ball hit the pin on the fly, but it was an elevated green, so we didn’t see what happened,” said Smith. “Bob left, and when we got up to the green, we found his ball in the hole. He wasn’t even around for his first hole-in-one.” So his buddies called him. No one answered. “We left him a message,” said Smith. “Hey coach, you won’t believe this… ” Oh, and Pacific won the game 75-53.
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It’s okay to eat without me
“The coach doesn’t like to have a pre-game meal with the team, and he doesn’t meet with the team the night before a game,” said assistant coach Adam Jacobson. “I think he uses that time to gather his thoughts, but he’s also giving his assistants some room to grow and coach. There’s a great trust in the coaches who work for him, and it goes both ways.”
Coach is the name, poker’s the game
“There isn’t a poker game or golf game he doesn’t get excited about,” said wife Jerri, laughing. “He’s got a regular poker group. Bob’s the youngest. I think most of the rest of them are on oxygen. But he loves to play and there isn’t a poker game or golf game he doesn’t think he can win.”
Double your flavor, double your fun…
Centro Mart. Store No. 34. 2156 Alpine Way. That’s where director of athletic training Chris Pond has stopped before each home game for the past 16—yes 16—years to purchase gum for the coach and the team. “It’s sort of been a secret all these years,” says Pond, who is one of the longest at Thomason’s side. “Juicy Fruit, Big Red, Winterfresh, and Doublemint, that’s what I buy each time. Coach always is the first to get his gum, and then I pass it out to the rest of the team.” Pond, who took it on himself to start buying the gum, should own stock in Wrigley. “Thing is,” said Pond, “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen him chew the gum.” To save you asking, Bob Thomason always has been a Doublemint man.
Pass on the ham, ma’am
The coach goes into a restaurant and says to friends with him, “I’m not a rib man.” And then when the waitress shows up, he says, “So how are the ribs?” And then he orders them. But think twice before delivering that Honey Baked to the Thomason home at Christmas. “Five years ago, he just decided he couldn’t eat ham ever again,” said Jerri. “I have no idea why.”
Flying chalkboards
Bob Thomason has mellowed as a coach, especially the past few years as he has enjoyed tremendous success. It wasn’t always that way. As a high school coach at Escalon, he won 66 games and lost only 17. But his closest friend remembers the coach losing his temper during one game, taking his chalkboard and throwing it. “It landed in the stands and hit some lady,” said wife Jerri.
Anyone seen Scott?
Everyone’s got a haunting story about their kids. Mine (blush) has to do with falling asleep while babysitting my three-year-old son and awakening to find he had eaten half of the food in our dogs’ bowl. Bob Thomason’s story is told by one of two sons--Scott, now 30. His older brother Jeff is a police officer in Oakland. “I was seven or eight, and used to be the ball boy for Dad when he coached at Stanislaus State,” remembers Scott. “We’d ride together. After one game, he had so much on his mind that he left the gym without me. I sort of panicked when I realized I was all alone. Dad walked in the house and Mom said, ‘Where’s Scott?’” A short (and quick) trip back found Scott sitting on the steps in front of the gym. “Next time we went to a game,” said Scott, “when I got out of the car, I reminded him, ‘Don’t forget about your kid.’”
We put a headline on this story that reads, “For the love of the game.” But it’s way more than that. This is about a coach who has the love of a town and a university, and a town and a university that loves him back.
It’s admiration. It’s respect.
“I don’t have to drive that bus,” said Stan, who drives the bus. “I do it because he’s my friend. I’d drive free for him.”
His players feel the same way because as much as he might shout to drive home a point, he’s right there to put his arm around his players, too. A former player, now assistant coach, Jacobson says the coach lives to see his players graduate. “I’m not sure there’s anything more pleasing to him than seeing players graduate. And there’s nothing more discouraging to him than when they don’t.”
And no one more than Jerri knows what this life means for Bob Thomason. “Every day he prays for his players,” she says. “He even prays for players he’s recruiting because he doesn’t want anyone to come here and be unhappy. He wants people around him to love Pacific, and have the same feeling he does.”