35 seasons, 500 wins

Jim Thacker recalls several memorable victories among the 493 his boys basketball teams accumulated at three different stops prior to his arrival at Lake City High School this year.

His 500th win, however, will be one he may never forget. And it’s not because it was necessarily a milestone victory.

He reached the landmark win when Lake City held on for a 40-39 victory over Post Falls in an Inland Empire League game Saturday. The Timberwolves led 40-28 with 1 minute, 16 seconds remaining in the third quarter, but they didn’t score again.

Thacker had coached 812 games previously, but none of his teams had gone scoreless in a quarter and won.

“It’s by far one of the strangest things that’s happened,” Thacker said. “I can’t remember a game where we haven’t scored in a quarter.”

LC appeared on the brink of putting Post Falls away. But the Trojans’ Brandon Haas got a steal and sprinted away for a possible dunk. LC’s Jarom Taylor was called for an intentional foul when he pushed Haas from behind. Haas made both free throws, and the momentum switch was palpable.

“It took the wind out of us,” Thacker said. “We lost our composure and the game just turned. They got the momentum in every facet. It was one of those things I felt like I had no control of. I called timeouts and that didn’t do anything. It was just bizarre the way it ended. Give our defense some credit. But believe me, I would have liked to have won in a different way.”

Thacker, 58, resigned at Walla Walla last year because he had met the criteria for retirement from teaching in Washington. Coincidentally, as he pondered retirement, the coaching position was open at Lake City. Thacker pursued the job because he wasn’t ready to walk away altogether.

He got his start in coaching in 1970 at Gooding, Idaho, which is located near Twin Falls. An A-2 school at the time (3A today), Gooding won back-to-back state titles in his two years at the school.

But Thacker wanted to return to Washington – he was a Central Valley graduate and played for his father, Ray Thacker – so he took a job in north central Washington at Omak. The school took second in state in the first of Thacker’s two years there.

Shortly thereafter, Thacker interviewed for the head coaching job at Gonzaga Prep. He was told the job was his. But at the last minute, the school hired a coach from Montana.

He wonders if he would have spent the majority of his career in Spokane had he landed the G-Prep job. He took the next year off from teaching and coaching to complete a master’s degree in counseling at Whitworth.

Thacker returned to coaching the following year, taking the job at Walla Walla. He spent the next 30 years in the town made famous by a sweet onion. The Blue Devils played for state titles twice, winning in 1999. That team included future college players Thomas Kelati (Washington State) and Kyle Bankhead (Gonzaga).

WW captured seven state trophies in 10 trips under Thacker.

Strangely, for all the memorable victories, it’s the losses that Thacker said he remembers all too well.

“I don’t remember my first win as a coach, but I remember my first loss,” Thacker said. “I remember losses more than wins because they’re harder to get over for me.”

In his first year at Gooding, the Senators started 11-0. In their next game, they played host to Mountain Home, an A-1 team, which was 0-11.

“They were definitely better than 0-11. They played in the Boise league,” Thacker said. “They started 6-8, 6-7 and 6-4 inside. I still remember it as plain as day. It was an overtime loss. They stole an inbounds pass under our basket and went down and scored. That was it.”

Thacker’s first season with the Blue Devils has a special spot in his heart.

WW won its final four regular-season games to tie for sixth place in the Big Nine Conference. The top six teams advanced to the district playoffs and Wa-Hi had to win a playoff game. The Blue Devils upset Richland.

“We had to win five in a row just to go to districts,” Thacker said. “The (Walla Walla Union-Bulletin newspaper) called it the ‘miracle march.’ “

WW qualified for state. It played for fifth place, but lost. The Blue Devils, who earned a trophy for eighth and finished 14-15 overall, are the lone team in 4A history to capture a trophy with a record less than .500.

“It took a long time for those kids to buy in,” Thacker said. “I had a more structured philosophy then than I do today.”

In his third season, WW was 3-17. When the seniors were sophomores in Thacker’s first year, their season was canceled halfway through because of budget cuts.

“I remember a lot of the kids on my teams, but I can probably tell you all the names of those kids as well as any other team because they battled,” Thacker said. “They didn’t have any talent – there was no basketball talent. My best three players would not have made any other team in the conference.”

WW lost a home game to eventual state champ Richland 116-58. “That’s the worst lost I’ve ever had,” he said.

Thacker had another 3-17 season three years later, but by the early 1980s the wins started coming in bunches.

“The turning point in my career was winning a conference game at Richland,” Thacker said of the conference’s powerhouse at the time. “From that point on things really started to go. We started to reap all the hard work we’d put in in the grade school and summer league.”

At LC, things have progressed slower than Thacker anticipated. The T-Wolves (7-9 overall, 5-3 league), who swept their league games against Coeur d’Alene, won back-to-back games for the first time last weekend.

“We put four quarters together for the first time this season,” Thacker said of his team’s 49-46 win at Moscow on Friday. “It’s not what we’re doing offensively or defensively. It’s more trying to instill a mind-set. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve gotten a sense that they’re starting to buy in. I think they’re figuring out that what we’re doing is going to work.”

Perhaps LC will have a similar finish to Thacker’s first team at WW. It’s enough to make a longtime coach dream.