February 2, 2011

NCDS: Doug Thibault, Asst. Coach - Longwood

 

As a newcomer to the College Chalktalk Nat'l Coaches' Diary Series I am excited about the opportunity to share and compare my experiences both within the Longwood Basketball Program and the great game that we all have in common.  Sitting down to decide what to talk about during my first diary entry, I kept coming back to the fact that since we are a newer Division I program there a lot of aspects of Longwood University and our basketball program that people are not familiar with.  So I would like to take this opportunity to introduce everyone to Longwood University and our Lancer Basketball Family here in Farmville, Virginia.

Longwood University is a state school of 4,800 full-time students located in the heart of Central Virginia.  We have a beautiful 60 acre campus that has an enduring southern charm.  The buildings themselves are designed in a red-brick colonial style or a contemporary design that still uses the red-bricks within that medium.  The University was founded in 1839 and was an all women’s college until 1976.  With this in mind, Longwood University is the location where four national sororities were founded.  We have a wonderful campus feel with over 75% of our students living in campus housing.  The University has a tremendous faculty that teaches a varied curriculum offering over 100 majors and minors.  The learning environment itself is enhanced with small class sizes and an 18/1 student to faculty ratio.

Until this past summer, we were led by Dr. Patricia Cormier before she retired after 14 remarkable years as President of Longwood University.  She changed, expanded, and enhanced our campus in so many ways that I would need multiple coaches’ diary entries just to list them.  Dr. Cormier was also the catalyst, along with the Longwood Board of Visitors, for Longwood’s farsighted move to Division I athletics.

Now we are ecstatic to have retired Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan and his awe-inspiring vision of where Longwood University can aspire to become amongst the greatest universities this country has to offer.  His leadership and his goals for the future of Longwood University have brought a whole new energy rippling through our campus.  It is truly a great time to be a Longwood Lancer.

As far as the Longwood Basketball Family, as I stated earlier we are a newer Division I program. We played our first full Division I basketball schedule during the 2003-04 season.  The leader of our program is eighth year head coach Mike Gillian.  Coach Gillian was brought in specifically to take us through this transition to Division I and develop our program with the utmost level of integrity, while playing at the highest level of competition.

Prior to his time here at Longwood University, he was a longtime assistant for Jim Larranaga both at George Mason University and at Bowling Green University.  He has built a program with hard work and dedication, while emphasizing the importance of building the student-athlete as an individual.  From day one, he has always preached the importance of building our young men in three major areas.  These areas are academically, athletically, and socially.  He feels that you need to create balance in their lives and teach them that you must develop all three.  Within this, he teaches them that the only way to truly achieve greatness in one of these areas is to be great at all three of these areas.

Throughout these eight years of Coach Gillian building the “Longwood Basketball Family,” I have been privileged to be on this staff the entire time.  I am joined by Tim Fudd, who in his fourth season with us here at Longwood University.  He came to us after a very successful career as a high school and AAU coach in the Commonwealth of Virginia.  This was after a playing career at American University from 1991-1996.  Coach Fudd followed his college playing career with a professional playing career that included multiple stints in Europe and even some time in South America.

A new edition to our staff this year is former Longwood Lancer standout Kevin Swecker.  Kevin played for us from 2006-10 and then took the opportunity this fall to stay and fill our recently-created position of Director of Basketball Operations.  Due to an opportunity that our long-time friend and assistant coach, Bill Reinson, had to take over as our Head Women’s Coach in December, Kevin is now our third assistant coach for the remainder of the season.  He has really seized this opportunity and is growing as a young coach every day.

Most of you in the basketball world know our status as a Division I Independent, and are probably familiar with the challenging schedule we play yearly.  But to truly put that in perspective, we will have traveled over 17,832 miles by the time this season ends.  This is a very typical number for us, in fact, this is a smaller number compared to some of our other years.  We had a 12-day road trip this year, but that is dwarfed by our previous 17-day and multiple 16-day road trips.  Even with these demands and heavy road schedule, we are 29-8 in our last three seasons in our beautiful home of Willett Hall located here on our campus of Longwood University.

It can take a huge toll on our players’ minds and bodies, but we are proud of how resilient they have been over these eight years as we have built Longwood Basketball into what it is today.  For example, last season we had a 1000 APR, graduating all four of our seniors on time in four years.   These type of stats are as important to us in showing not only how much we have improved on the court in our time here, but more importantly how much our young student athletes have developed as people.

The players are what this game is all about for me, and the opportunity to watch them grow from young men into men.  I am fortunate enough to be at a place where this is shared by all in the Longwood Basketball Family, and we practice it every day in our actions.  I personally look forward to sharing in my future diary entries, not only basketball thoughts, but just as importantly the other great parts that make college basketball the greatest game in the world, and one of the best tools to teach young minds, life’s great lessons.

I would personally like to thank College Chalktalk for the opportunity that has been presented to me to share the world of Longwood Basketball with you and until my next diary entry...

GO LANCERS! 

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