East Tennessee State basketball coach Desmond Oliver has announced the hiring of his entire coaching staff.
Patrice Days, Mark Bialkoski and Mantoris Robinson have been named assistant coaches, while Oliver named Lucas Campbell the director of basketball operations and Sunny Park the director of basketball sport performance.
âIâm very excited to finally have all of my staff on board,â Oliver said. âWhen I set out to hire this staff, I wanted to find guys that had the ability to recruit, develop and teach at the highest level. We talk about wanting our players walking into opposing teamâs arenas and looking like a Power-5 team physically. Iâm blessed to say we have a Power-5 coaching staff. We have experienced guys with the highest character who are connected and committed to player development on and off the court.â
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Tom Cox
While preparing recently to teach a course about the history of the desegregation of Southern college sports, I had the good fortune to connect with ETSU basketball legend Tommy Woods. Mr. Woods, who was inducted last month into the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame, enrolled at ETSU in 1963, becoming the schoolâs first black player â and probably the first African American to integrate a varsity team at any Tennessee public college. Now 77 and retired from a career in law enforcement in Louisville, Kentucky, he entertained and enlightened me with several stories about his experiences at ETSU.
Tommy Woods grew up in Alcoa, where he attended segregated all-black public schools. When he accepted ETSUâs scholarship offer, he was not even aware he would become a racial trailblazer. A talented and hard-working player (he still holds all the ETSU records for rebounding), neither his athletic talents nor his life experience had prepared Woods for what awaited him when h