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CEDAR CITY -- The announcement of Southern Utah men's basketball Head Coach Roger Reid's retirement stunned the Thunderbird players, who learned of Reid's retirement in a final team meeting just before the official university press release was posted.
SUU senior guard Ray Jones, who played his final game for SUU in a loss to South Dakota State Monday, said the team was in a typical end of the season team meeting when Reid told the players he was going to retire Thursday afternoon. The official announcement came a little over an hour after the meeting.
"It caught me off guard," Jones said. "Even though I'm gone, it still hurt a little bit inside just to know he won't be here after all he's done for the program and for the school. I wish him the best and I know we'll keep in touch."
Senior forward Matt Massey said the team meeting began as usual, until Reid dropped the news halfway through.
"It was kind of unexpected because he was talking about how next year he wanted to have success playing," Massey said. "Then he kind of just dropped a bomb on us and said, ‘In saying all that, I'm going to retire as your coach.' And everyone was like, ‘Oh, wow.'"
Reid coached SUU for five seasons and never got an above .500 record in his T-Bird tenure. His best season at SUU came this past year, as the T-Birds finished the season with a 14-17 record.
The T-Birds then defeated Oakland 84-82 in the opening round of the conference tournament, which turned out to be Reid's 206th and final win as a Division I head coach.
SUU was knocked out in the semifinals of the Summit League tournament on Monday. However, his players said their best memories of Reid would be the lessons he taught away from the court.
"I think the stuff I'll really take away is off the court and what he teaches you about life, respect, leadership and loyalty — which can take you a long ways in your professional careers," Massey said. "I probably won't even realize it for the next couple of years, but a lot of past players said, ‘You'll thank coach Reid later' and I think that's the way it'll be for me."
Former T-Bird center John Clifford, who graduated in 2009 after two years under Reid, took to Twitter to thank Reid.
"Coach Reid: You always said ‘you'll thank me later' .. I truly mean this when I say it. Thank you for everything," Clifford tweeted Thursday night.
Jones said the majority of SUU fans and students never really saw how much Reid cared about the players he recruited.
"I don't think people who knew Reid like we did realized how compassionate he is as a guy — as a man," Jones said. "The way he taught us basketball and life pretty much went hand-in-hand."
SUU has been atop the Summit League in team GPA for the past two seasons, which Jones credited Reid for.
"Academically, he's been on all of us more than any of us have been guiding on," Jones said. "Coming from a junior college, grades weren't that important. You try to get decent grades, you just want to play ball. But here, he made sure you were on top of your grades, passing classes and actually going to class."
Massey said he won't forget everything Reid did to help him in his four years he spent at SUU, after transferring from Division II Nova Southeastern and moving from Australia to the U.S.
"The guy gave me a scholarship when I didn't even have a year to play," Massey said. "I had to sit out a year (after transferring from Nova Southeastern) and he went out on a limb for me and basically gave me everything, so it's tough to see a guy like that go."
