Badin coach Matt Thompson announced Monday he's stepping down after three seasons.
“I did it because somebody needed to do it,” said Thompson, who took the job two weeks before the start of the 2013-14 regular season. “I said I’d do it until the next guy was ready. I like teaching basketball. I don’t like being ‘the’ guy.”
Badin Athletic Director Geoff Melzer said there are several internal candidates interested in the job, and that he expected interviews to take place soon.
“Matt put together a great staff in a short time when he took over,” Melzer said. “There are some very strong candidates from inside the staff and I don’t know whether we will need to open it up to outside candidates. We hope to have a decision by the end of the month.”
Thompson’s teams compiled a 32-42 record over three years, including 6-24 in the Greater Catholic League Co-Ed Central Division.
“Matt did a great job and we were happy to have him as our head coach,” Melzer said. “The record by no means is an indication of the success of our program. We were in the game night-in and night-out. When you’re getting ready to play the Badin boys basketball team, you know you’re in for a tough game.”
The Rams went 13-12 and reached the Division III district championship game in 2014, and followed that up with records of 10-15 and 9-15, advancing in the tournament each year.
Senior Zach Larkin became just the third Badin boys’ basketball player to eclipse the 1,000-point scoring mark under Thompson, and ended his career as the second-leading scorer in the history of the program.
“It was a positive experience,” Thompson said of being the head coach. “Obviously there’s some disappointment in not reaching all of your goals.
“But the players come in as boys and leave as young men. I saw similar things happen when I was part of the program as a player. I hope our young men got out of it what I got out of it. If that happened, it’s all for the best.”
Thompson, Badin’s maintenance director, is a 1988 graduate of BHS who started on the Rams’ 1987-88 team that went 28-0 and won the Division III state championship, which was the first team title in Badin High School history.
Thompson, 46, noted that he has been asked to help Badin basketball in various situations on three occasions, and has been happy to say yes each time – in 1993, following the death of girls head coach Judy Kraft on the day before practice was to start; in 1995, to assist Dan Purcell when he was named head coach of the girls; and in 2013, when a coaching vacancy occurred just as the season was getting underway.
“The program will be in really good hands,” Thompson said. “I have a son who will be a senior. I know he will be well coached.”
