New coaches join girls basketball team

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Rose Guan

Coaches Thompson and Pringle watch the players sprint to warm up before beginning to practice at an open gym as the latter handles a basketball. The coaches want “mostly to build up [the players’] fundamentals, skill development and a winning attitude,” Pringle said.

by Katherine Zhang and Rose Guan

Tomas Thompson and Dan Pringle joined the varsity girls basketball team as the new head coach and assistant coach respectively on Nov. 2, replacing former head coach Alfredo Andrew Alves.

Thompson, originally from Santa Cruz, played basketball throughout high school and college. He continued to teach physical education at the lower school for 12 years before coaching basketball at Hillbrook School. The son of a basketball coach, he was also the assistant coach for Harker’s varsity boys basketball team for five years.

“I wanted to follow in [my dad’s] footsteps, so I knew when I was done playing basketball that I wanted to be into coaching,” Thompson said.

Pringle has coached both in his hometown of Philadelphia and in California. He was the head basketball coach at Downtown College Prep in San Jose and has also coached flag football, baseball and basketball at Harker. The Philadelphia atmosphere steered Pringle towards a career in coaching.

“From New York to Philadelphia, it was basketball games every Friday night and Saturday, and I would go to all of those games,” Pringle said. “So from 1985, I started coaching basketball until today.”

Thompson and Pringle plan for the team to focus on running, endurance and basic techniques so that the girls play fast and stay in shape.

“Off-season, we did a lot of conditioning,” Thompson said. “In the summer we did a lot of workouts, focused a lot on just fundamentals and worked a lot on speed and endurance, because the way we’re going to play this year is going to be really fast.”

New player Kailee Gifford (11) spoke about how the coaches helped her learn how to play the sport.

Coach Pringle and Coach Thompson are super patient with helping me catch on to the basics,” Kailee said. “They have a tremendous amount of faith in each and every player.”

The team held open gym practices before their practice season started on Nov. 2. The girls play their first game at Pescadero High School on Dec. 3 at noon.