NOT FOUND: coach of decade.jpgDrew Hibbs is the first to admit he was not a great athlete. What he did do in high school was work harder than anyone else playing basketball. It made him a good player, and later a great coach.

Hibbs is the only boys’ basketball coach in the Sac-Joaquin Section to win two state championships, in 1994 and 2003. His Foothill High School Mustangs also hold eight Capital Valley Conference league titles, a 2002 section title, and usually win at least 20 games every season.
And it doesn’t stop there. Hibbs hit the 300-win milestone on Jan. 22. It’s no surprise he’s the Sacramento Bee’s Coach of the Decade for basketball.
“It’s a nice honor and I was surprised,” says Hibbs. “It’s for a body of work over the decade. We’ve consistently won our league. We’ve consistently been in the playoffs. We’ve had phenomenal years and that’s an achievement for our program. It’s not really for me. I’m driving the bus, but it’s the kids and the staff who have had the drive to do this. The recognition is nice; I’m not going to lie. But it’s all about the program.”

Hibbs has been a teacher at Foothill for 19 years; 13 of them as the highly respected basketball coach.

As a high school player, Hibbs’ coach gave him the keys to the gym so he could practice as much as he wanted to, which was all hours of the day and night. Hibbs wanted to be a winner, the best of the best. That hasn’t changed.
“I’ve had issues with that over the years no matter what I’m doing,” he says. “I want to win no matter if it’s miniature golf … whatever the competition is I want to win. I don’t want it to sound like I can’t take losing, because it really isn’t about that."
“With my teams, it’s all about that Army slogan, ‘Be All that You Can Be.’ I feel that if we play the way we’re capable of playing, if we do things we’re supposed to do and play with effort, heart and pride, then most of the time the winning is going to take care of itself. And on those occasions when you don’t win, well, that probably means the other team is just better. I can live with that.”
What’s tough to swallow is when his teams lack effort and intensity. That doesn’t happen often, but for the first time in eight years, the Foothill Mustangs are in second place in league play. The Mustangs are ranked 11th in the Bee’s Top 20 and have an 18-5 record (as of Feb. 10).
“Our record is better than I expected,” says Hibbs. “But I don’t feel like we’re meeting the expectations of intensity, of hard work. I have a problem with that.”

It’s a problem because the goal each year is to compete at a state championship level.
“What makes those championship teams? A drive. A hunger. When the coach doesn’t have to motivate, when the team members and leadership handle their own discipline, when the coach doesn’t have to do that … the less I have to talk and the more they communicate with each other, the better. That’s what drove the 1994 and 2003 championship teams.
“The first state championship was surreal. I kept hitting my assistant coach saying we’re going to win this. It was a shock and it didn’t sink in for a long time. Then to have the opportunity to get back to that level and do it again. We went into the 2003 game knowing we were going to win. There was no option—anything less than a state championship would have been a disappointment. I had a lot of friends and colleagues who couldn’t believe I said that. They felt I was putting too much pressure on the guys. But the kids could handle it. They knew what they wanted and they pushed themselves to achieve it.”

He pushes, too, always. It all goes back to those days at South Tahoe High School when he kept practicing long after his teammates went home.
“I give my guys some time off in the spring and some in the fall,” says Hibbs. “Other than that, we go all summer. You have to be in order to be competitive nowadays. It’s about commitment and a love for the game. I’ve just always had a love for basketball. In high school the last thing I would look at before I went to bed was my list of goals that were posted on the wall, not only personal goals, but team goals as well. And the first thing I would do when I woke up in the morning was look at those goals to be reminded what I needed to do to be successful.”
And there’s no question he has exceeded his goals. But for Hibbs, there’s more. It’s not all about shooting hoops and coaching championship teams.
“It’s all nice, but the rewards are the relationships and the former players who come back and watch what we’re doing … the former players who are involved in our program,” he says. “It’s about the former players who call and say ‘Hey, coach, lets go out, let’s go play some golf.’ To know, in some way, that you’ve helped somebody out, you’ve been some kind of role model in their lives, or have had some kind of impact, a positive impact. Those relationships, that’s what it’s all about.”