WIU coach big fan of fieldhouse

K.C. native Thomas played in Allen as child

Derek Thomas, who as a youth played basketball with Ted Owens in Allen Fieldhouse and later broke down film with Roy Williams in the tradition-rich building, tonight will return to fulfill a dream.

Thomas, a 39-year-old Kansas City, Mo., native and the son of former Chiefs cornerback Emmitt Thomas, will coach his first game in the fieldhouse when his third Western Illinois team takes on Kansas University.

Tipoff is 7 tonight with a live telecast on channel 38 (Sunflower Broadband Channel 15).

“I will be tickled to death and happy. It’s an honor to be a coach in that place,” Thomas said.

“I worked as a ballboy at the Big Eight tournament in Kemper Arena. I know the history of the Big Eight,” explained the coach, who played for former KU assistant Lafayette Norwood at Johnson County CC before finishing at Missouri-St. Louis, where he was a standout point guard from 1986 to ’88.

Since then, he has worked as an assistant at Saint Louis, Minnesota, Illinois and UNLV, as well as a scout for the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks.

“I come back to the area a lot. I’ve got a lot of friends who will be at the game,” said Thomas, who said he gained immeasurably from competing as a toddler at the Owens camp and working Williams’ KU camps.

Western Illinois Coach Derek Thomas, a native of Kansas City, Mo., is in his third season as coach of the Leathernecks.

“Bill is a good friend of mine,” Thomas said of KU coach Bill Self. “He understands how important it is for us to come to the area, how important and big a fan of the place I am.”

“The place” is Allen Fieldhouse.

“This is something that he’s wanted to do. He’s always followed the Jayhawks closely,” Self said of his friend, Thomas.

Norwood, a former KU assistant, now is golf coach at Johnson County CC and lives in Lawrence.

“He’s very excited about coming back,” Norwood said of Thomas. “It means everything that he can come in and compete at this level. He is just great with the talent he has. He’s one of the greatest kids I ever coached. He’s a role model.”

Last season, the Leathernecks went 11-14 overall and 7-9 in the Mid Continent Conference — a vast improvement from the squad’s 3-25, 1-15 league showing in his first season at the Macomb, Ill., school.

It was the seventh-best turnaround of all teams in the U.S. a year ago, prompting one publication to call him one of the country’s top 30 Div. I “up-and-coming head coaches.”

“I think he can be one of the best (in country),” Norwood said of Thomas, who played at Hickman Mills High. “He has the temperament, knowledge and understanding, the wisdom.”

Western Illinois is 2-2 after Saturday’s 76-68 home victory over rival Eastern Illinois and a 102-79 home loss to Indiana. Thomas is confident his program is headed in the right direction, and league coaches tapped his team to finish fourth in the nine-team Mid-Con.

The Leathernecks are led by sophomore guard David Jackson, who averages 20.5 points a game.

“I like my team, but we still have some work to do. We are a piece of work in progress,” Thomas said. “It’s going to be tough coming to Kansas. Everybody talks about how young they are. They are still Kansas, still have McDonald’s All Americans.”

Thomas’ dad, Emmitt, now coaches the Atlanta Falcons’ defensive backs. Derek Thomas is not enthused about the chances of this year’s Chiefs.

“No,” he said, asked if this was the team’s best chance to win the Super Bowl since his dad’s Super Bowl IV victory in 1970. “They’ve got some work to do.”