“It is not enough to be TALENTED, try to become IMPACTFUL”
Coach Mike Thomas:
On August 22, 2008, Mike Thomas was introduced as Kalamazoo Central’s head boy’s basketball coach. Thomas came to Kalamazoo Central after working for two years as an assistant coach at Northwood University, two years as the Junior Varsity boys basketball coach at Saginaw High School and two years as the head girls 7th & 8th grade coach at South Middle School, located in Saginaw, MI. As he begins his fourth season at Kalamazoo Central, Mike Thomas can look back on his coaching tenure with the Giants knowing that he has achieved his initial goal of turning a program that rarely competed at the regional level, into an elite program that competes at a national level.
The accomplishments for Thomas and the Giants in his first three seasons have been signigicant:
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Three Year Record of 77 Wins and 6 Losses
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Tournament Record of 22 Wins and 1 Loss
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SMAC Record of 48 Wins and 0 Losses
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2010 2011 MHSAA Class A State Champions (25-3)
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2009-2010 MHSAA Class A State Champions (27-1)
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2008-2009 MHSAA Class A State Runner Up (25-2)
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BCAM Overall Coach of the Year (08-09)
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BCAM Class A Coach of the Year (09-10)
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Detroit Free Press Coach of the Year (09-10)
Coach Mike Thomas has created a program where players are able to be successful after high school as well. Over the past three seasons the Maroon Giant program has developed three NCAA Division One Players, three NCAA Division Two Players, One Division One Junior College Player, and 6 Division Two Junior College Players. This program has also produced three McDonald All American Nominees, three All-State Players, one Michigan Dream Player, one Conference MVP, seven First Team All Conference Players and a 100% graduation rate. These former players have set the bar for what it means to be a Maroon Giant Basketball Player. They have IMPACTED the lives of the younger Kalamazoo Central Basketball Players by continuing to attack the goals they have set for themselves.
Although the accomplishments to date have been appealing, Thomas now has his eye set on achieving his biggest goal, that is, sustaining the success the program has found so that year in and year out the Giants are championship contenders. To Coach Thomas, success is not important if the program has been built the wrong way and is unable to sustain it.
Thomas is quick to point out the three characteristics that a successful program must have to find success: A vision, a plan and quality people. In every decision that he has made, Thomas has kept those three points in mind as he began the process of building the Giant program. In the three years since being named the head coach at Kalamazoo Central, Thomas has systematically gone about building a new program. He thoroughly put together a plan for the first four seasons, knowing that he needed to build the program with a solid foundation and evenly spread the resources in order to help assure that success would be constant instead of fleeting.
That initial plan focused on three periods. The first period was the 2008-2009 season where he stressed the importance of putting the first building blocks in place to stabilize the program, which was to create a NO EXCUSE work ethic, hold players accountable for their actions, install discipline, confidence and get players to understand how to compete at a high level. The second was the period from the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 seasons, during which Thomas envisioned success because of the heavy upper class roster and their hunger to accomplish a goal after being defeated. The final, and perhaps the most important period, that Thomas has focused on starts this year, the 2011-2012 season. Having to replace five seniors who were the backbone of the two postseason teams, Thomas knows that it is going take a lot of hard work in order to make sure that the success of the last three seasons is extended further.
Thomas says, “Having good quality supportive people around your program is very important in taking a program to the next level.” With that being said, Thomas gives his utmost respect to a good positive friend of the program (William Payne) who helped mature him and the program as a person, coach and team. During Kalamazoo Central’s back to back championship runs, Coach Thomas used the insight of William Payne’s off the court team bonding exercises. In doing so, Thomas was able to create leadership amongst the team. “Payne taught our program to believe, trust and depend on one another which in the end formed a brotherhood that will last a lifetime,” says Thomas.
During the Maroon Giants back to back title run, Thomas created meaning for each season. He wanted his team to concentrate and stay mentally focused on the task at hand. During the 2009-2010 title run, he named the season REDEPTION simply because the team fell short of the goal that they believed they could accomplish the previous year (Winning the State Title). During the 2010-2011 season, Thomas created a sense of urgency to return and repeat what they had accomplished by using the phrase GOTTA GET IT. “We understood that there was going to be a huge target on our backs and that every team we played would be aiming for us. We understood that there were three types of teams in the world, the teams that Hope To Win It, the teams that would Like To Win It, and the teams that have GOT TO WIN IT. We decided that we wanted to be the team that had GOT TO WIN IT.
This upcoming 2011-2012 season we want to continue to build and structure our legacy. We will continue to set high goals. The Maroon Giants basketball team has a chance to repeat history and win three straight state titles. This is something not many teams in the history of basketball, let alone the history of MHSAA basketball, have done. Thomas realizes that the target has gotten bigger but is ready for the task in front of him. This summer Thomas attended the Impact and Legacy Summit and received a wealth of information. This season’s meaningful phrase came from the President and Chairman of the Green Leaf Trust Company, Bill Johnston, which stated, “It is not enough to be talented, so try to become IMPACTFUL. This season our goal as a program is to IMPACT the lives of our youth, city, school, community, and the lives of each other.
A Mike Thomas-led basketball program places a strong emphasis on academics, character, discipline and family. Combined with an up-tempo game that relies on fundamentals and relentless defensive pressure has paid huge dividends during his coaching career.
