Don Monson Considers Applying For Eastern Job

Don Monson has met with Eastern Washington athletic director John Johnson regarding the men’s basketball coaching vacancy, and the former coach is seriously considering applying for the position.

A former head coach at Idaho and Oregon, Monson has been out of college coaching since fired by the Ducks in March 1992. The EWU job became available when John Wade was fired last week after five seasons.

“It looks to me like it’s definitely a workable situation,” Monson said Thursday, “and I just had to talk to them a little bit about assistants, about assistants’ pay, about budget.”

“I have a copy of the budget, and I’m looking over that right now. Of course, I’m familiar with a lot of the people out there and a lot of the situation. They have a number of kids coming back. There are a lot of pluses there.”

Monson coached at Cheney High School starting in 1958, stopping at Pasco High before moving on in 1976 to assist Jud Heathcote at Michigan State. Monson became head coach at Idaho in 1978, making the Sweet 16 of the 1982 NCAA Tournament before leaving to coach Oregon in 1983.

At 61, Monson said he is unsure whether he’s ready to jump back into coaching. But the Spokane resident is tempted to apply at EWU, which has been taking applications since Wade was fired as coach and resigned from the university as part of a $75,000 settlement last Thursday.

Is Monson ready to turn around a program that has gone 23-82 over the last four seasons?

“That’s the biggest thing,” Monson acknowledged. “I have to see if I want to jump-start myself again.

“I also think they deserve a straight-forward approach to it, and not just somebody kind of milling around or feeling something out. And that’s what I’m going to do here in the next day or so.”

An Idaho graduate, Monson considered applying for the athletic director’s position at Idaho in May 1992, but instead coached an Australian professional team for one season.

Johnson said he has received more than 50 applications, and will narrow the field to 10 or 12 by Monday.

Monson’s son Dan is an assistant at Gonzaga, but said last week he won’t apply at EWU.