Freeman’s new coach

Towels.

Four days into his first season as head boys basketball coach at Freeman High and Greg Hannan has a handle on what being the man in charge is all about.

“There are a lot of little things the head guy has to worry about,” he said while one of his dripping-wet players searched in vane for a clean, dry towel. “Making sure the towels get washed, stuff like that.”

The son of longtime Lewis-Clark State men’s basketball coach Dick Hannan, who now serves as commissioner of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference, Greg Hannan has an enviable basketball pedigree.

“My dad started out coaching at North Central,” Hannan said. “Back in the early 1960s. I just don’t remember that. That was about the time I was born.”

Dick Hannan became head coach of the Warriors for the 1974-75 season, and his son enjoyed a successful high school career at Clarkston, where his longtime friend and teammate was Freeman girls coach Matt Gregg.

“We got to the state tournament in 1982 and lost to Olympic and Detlef Schrempf,” he recalled. “Olympic ended our football season and our basketball season that year. My sophomore year we went 20-0 and were undefeated in the Frontier League. My junior year we were 22-3 and made it to state and my senior year we were something like 17-4.”

Hannan began his college basketball career at Eastern Washington University under Jerry Krause before transferring to LC State to play three seasons for his father. And he played professional basketball in Australia before settling down to a family and a career with Smith-Barney.

The family/coach connection expanded. Hannan’s brother-in-law is University of Idaho football coach Robb Akey.

Two years ago, Hannan began helping the Freeman basketball program as an assistant to Mike Thacker, who was finishing his playing career at Eastern as Hannan first arrived in Cheney.

“I helped out with the freshmen and with the JV, so I worked with most of the young guys on this year’s team,” Hannan said. “I was really looking forward to a couple more years with Mike – he’s a very good coach, a great Xs and Os guy.”

Everything was on track until just before the doors opened for the 2007-08 school year. In a surprise move, the Freeman school board voted not to rehire Thacker as the school’s basketball coach, then upheld that decision in the face of public support for the coach from students, athletes and parents.

Gregg encouraged his friend to apply for the interim job.

“I wasn’t sure I wanted to (be a head coach),” he said. “It was one thing for coach Thacker to do this, he’s single and he teaches here. I have a job, I’m married and I have a couple young kids. My two kids are 8 and 11 – if they’d been a little younger there’s no way I would have done this. I’m lucky; I have a very supportive wife.”

To help make the situation work, Gregg agreed to take the early practice session most days, giving Hannan the 5:30 practice slot.

Working out the logistics was just a first step.

Hannan understands the situation he faces with his players, replacing a popular and successful coach who remains a father figure to some.

“The young guys know me and understand what I’m like,” he said. “The ones that this will be the hardest on will be the seniors.”

Hannan said he understands his players’ feelings of divided loyalties, and he’s helping them work those feelings through. And he’s aware of the size of the task.

“Can we wait and talk about this at the end of the season,” he asks with a wry smile. “I’ll know a lot better how it turns out if we do this then.”

On the court, Hannan doesn’t plan to change much of what has been a successful program.

“I have a few wrinkles of my own that I want to put in, but for the most part I don’t want to change what works,” he said.

Hannan’s emphasis is on getting his players to practice the way they play. No cutting corners, not rounding off plays. Practice doesn’t make perfect; perfect practice does.

“The people here have been very supportive,” he said. “The principal, Dave Smith, has been very supportive and so has the athletics director, Brian Parisotto. Even the superintendent of schools, Sergio Hernandez, has come by.

“The one thing I know is that to do this job, you have to love the game and the kids. You sure don’t do it for the money.”