There was minimal fanfare when the UBC Thunderbirds men’s basketball team notched back-to-back wins on the road this weekend in Ontario.
Beyond the Thunderbirds, it wasn’t necessarily an occasion to commemorate. Beyond the Thunderbirds players and coaches, only a few informed insiders knew the occasion. Martin Timmerman, a statistician who runs cishoops.ca, and national scout Barry Hayes both came by the bench before tip-off to wish Hanson well. That was just enough attention for Hanson.
The games were non-conference, but the wins historic. Kevin Hanson, the head coach now in his 15th season with UBC, became the winningest coach in the program’s history.
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His 338th win came Oct. 26 in a 77-69 win over the University of Guelph.
“It was very memorable,” said Hanson, who, away from UBC at the gymnasiums of other schools, didn’t trumpet the pending record nor the one he finally set. “You look for all the proper clichés not to be too pompous on the road,” he said Tuesday afternoon at centre court of War Memorial Gym before a team practice.
Hanson surpassed the late Peter Mullins, the influential and respected Thunderbirds basketball coach who amassed 337 wins in 20 seasons, capping his tenure with two national university titles in 1970 and 1972.
Hanson reached the CIS final in 2009 and 2010, the same year he was named the Canadian university basketball coach of the year for the second time.
Mullins, also an Olympian decathlete, recruited Hanson in 1982 when he was a point guard at Delta’s Seaquam secondary. Hanson never played for Mullins — he retired before the recruit started his post-secondary career at Langara and then UBC — but the late coach inspired many players and coaches coming of age in Vancouver, where those relationships and connections persist today, said Hanson.
Hanson said it was a privilege to have been connected to Mullins and to have been coached by some of B.C.’s greatest, including Bill Stebbings, a community coach in Delta, Duncan McCallum, the head coach for the Langara Falcons, and Bruce Enns, the Thunderbirds coach whose tenure ended when Hanson’s started in 2000.
That year, Vern Knopp started as an assistant coach on the Thunderbirds’ roster. He shares in the record number of wins, said Hanson. “You won’t have a player stay around that long, but to have another coach is a pretty special thing.”
Hanson, whose daughter Jessica is a promising basketball player and track athlete in Grade 12 at Little Flower Academy, turned to coaching after the end of his playing career. He was an assistant at Simon Fraser University before taking the reins at Langara College. He led the Falcons to two national college championships as he amassed 261 wins in nine seasons.
Hanson is on the verge of another tremendous milestone. As a head coach of the two programs, he has 599 career wins.
The 600th could come this weekend when UBC travels to Oregon for two games. If he reaches the significant benchmark on the road for a second time, there will likely be little fanfare. That will be just fine.
