Thomas Evans III has the pedigree of a winner.
In high school he helped lead Oceana to its last sate championship in 1994, avenging a loss to Bridgeport in the ’93 Class AA title game.
As a coach in the middle school ranks, he’s guided Oceana to three consecutive Wyoming County Championships.
Now he hopes to bring that experience to the high school stage.
On Monday, March 28, the Wyoming County Board of Education named Evans the head basketball coach at Westside High School, replacing Shawn Jenkins who had led the Renegades for the last six seasons.
Jenkins submitted his resignation weeks before the season ended, giving those interested an opportunity to kick around the idea of taking over. Evans knew immediately that was his shot.
“I had been interested in high school basketball for awhile,” Evans said. “This being my school, it kind of just fell in my lap when Shawn decided to resign. To me it was a little unexpected. I’ve had a pretty good relationship with Shawn over the years just sending him players from middle school, but when I heard the announcement he was going to resign and give it up, it was a a little unexpected but an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”
Leading up to the announcement, Evans planned as though he would be tabbed the next head coach. That began with assessing the current state of the program and how to move it forward. As it stands the Renegades haven’t made the state tournament in four years, advancing no further than the regional round over the last three seasons.
He doesn’t feel the program garners the respect it, along with Baileysville and Oceana – the two schools that consolidated to form Westside, once did. His first goal is to change the culture and make the program relevant again on a statewide level.
“The culture of the program has just kind of fell off,” Evans said. “There used to be a fear factor when teams would play Oceana or Westside when we first got Westside going and I don’t see that anymore. I don’t see the respect or the fear when we show up to play. It’s just another game on everybody’s schedule now to play Westside. It’s not a big game, it’s not a feared game. They’re not intimidated by our brand coming into the gym.
“I attribute that to a lot of stuff. The kids are different now, and I recognize that and have coached them long enough to understand that but there just hasn’t seemed to be any accountability with them or better yet some expectations. It’s almost been acceptable that they have a .500 season or a losing season. They just move onto baseball or whatever the next sport might be and that’s okay. I wasn’t that way when I played and I’m still not that way. I’m not going to do anything average. I want to succeed and I want to be championship level no matter what.”
Evan believes the success at the middle school level can leak over into the high school level as he sets out the change the culture. As more of the middle school players he’s won with continue to age into the high school program, the belief is winning will be contagious.
“I think winning and losing are learned behaviors,” Evans said. “If you’re a part of a losing team, you can see that down from the pro level to the middle school. If you’re a part of a losing team, you’re going to continue to lose and it’s almost acceptable. You kind of learn how to lose games. If you learn how to win that’s going to carry over. That’s what I expect out of the middle school guys. They knew I wasn’t going to be happy if we were squeaking out wins or getting beat by teams we should beat. I think that’s going to carry over because I’ve coached a lot of the kids in the summer, coached against them or on my own teams. They know how I am. I’m no nonsense, I’m straightforward and I tell them what I expect of them. They know they’re going to be accountable to me and have expectations for each one of them.”
As a winner himself, Evans will bring the brand of basketball he had so much success with as a player to his new position at Westside. The hope is it will provide the same results it has every step along the way and go a log way towards reestablishing that fear factor and respect.
“When I played – both high school and collegiately – we played pressure defense with a lot of pace,” Evans said. “We got the ball out. We were looking for easy buckets. It wasn’t a half-court set kind of system. That’s what I know and that’s what my kids will enjoy playing. We’re not going to walk the ball up the court and run a 15-pass set. It’s not in me to do that. I’m not going to sit there and draw up a play that’s going to take 30 seconds to run. We’re going to get the ball up and that’s the difference you’re going to see off the bat – a lot more pressure on defense and offensively it’s going to be a lot quicker.”
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
