Coach Reid retired on March 8, 2012.
Roger
Reid is in his fifth season as SUU's head basketball coach. A 38-year veteran
of the coaching ranks, Coach Reid came to Southern Utah in the spring of 2007
from Snow College, where he spent the previous two seasons as head coach.
Last
year, with a team made up largely of sophomores and newcomers, Coach Reid led
the Thunderbirds to an 11-19 record and a spot in The Summit League tournament.
The team struggled early but finished strong, winning four of its last six
games, including road wins at IUPUI and Western Illinois, down
the stretch heading into the tournament. The only losses during the stretch
came at the hands of Summit League regular-season and tournament champion
Oakland and regular-season and tournament runner-up Oral Roberts.
In
2010 Coach Reid worked with a very young team that featured seven freshmen, six
of whom played significant minutes. With just one senior starter the team took
its lumps but the team still had its share of highlights, including an overtime
win against defending Summit League regular-season and tournament champion
North Dakota State and a season-finale win over Centenary that saw senior Davis
Baker conclude his career as one of SUU's all-time leading scorers. In addiiton
to Baker's accomplishments, freshman Matt Hodgson set the SUU single-season
blocks record under Coach Reid's tutelage last season.
In
2009 Coach Reid guided the team to its first Summit League post-season win
since 2003 as the T-Birds upset fourth-seed IUPUI in the quarterfinal round
of the conference tournament. SUU also gave eventual tournament champ North
Dakota State all it wanted in the semi-finals before bowing out of the
tournament. During the season SUU was one of just two league teams to beat
NDSU, and the only one to do it in Fargo, N.D. SUU posted an 11-20 overall
record last year, including an 8-10 mark in conference play, good for a
fifth-place finish.
The
most notable accomplishment for Coach Reid's Thunderbirds in 2008-09, however,
was a national free throw shooting championship as SUU led all of Division I with
its 79.6 percent accuracy rate. SUU also led the Summit League
in 3-point percentage defense, while individually, Davis Baker earned
all-conference honors and John Clifford led the league in rebounding and was
second in field goal percentage.
In
his first year at SUU, Coach Reid led the team to a 9-9 Summit League record
and a fifth-place finish in the conference, despite taking over a team that
returned just four lettermen from the previous season. The season started
slowly for SUU, but as the team came together the wins came too.
Under
Reid's leadership the Thunderbirds led the league in assists and were among the
league-leaders in most major statistical categories in league games in 07-08.
Senior forward Geoff Payne earned first-team all-Summit League recognition and
was named the conference's Newcomer of the Year.
Reid's
teams have performed academically year as well, as he has had players earn
spots on the Summit League Commissioner's List of Excellence each season,
including and four who have also been named to the NABC's Honors Court for
their work in the classroom.
During
his two seasons at Snow, Coach Reid oversaw the ascent of the program from a
middle-of-the-pack contender to a conference championship team. In 2007 he led the
Badgers to a 23-8 record and a Scenic West Athletic Conference regular-season
championship as well as No. 18
national ranking. He also coached a handful of all-Scenic West Athletic
Conference performers, including 2006 SWAC Player of the Year Geoff Payne.
Coach
Reid's teams at Snow excelled on the defensive end, twice finishing second in
the SWAC and among the country's leaders in scoring defense.
Prior
to taking over the Snow College program in the spring of 2005, Coach Reid spent
seven seasons coaching in the professional ranks, including five as an
assistant for the Phoenix Suns of the National Basketball Association (helping
the Suns to a pair of NBA playoff appearances), and two as head coach of the
Hangzhou Horses in the Chinese Basketball Association, China's professional
league. At Hangzhou he took over a team with six straight losing seasons and
quickly guided them to the CBA playoffs.
Coach
Reid is probably best known for his success as head coach at Brigham Young
University. While at BYU he guided the Cougars to a 152-76 record and three
Western Athletic Conference championships during his seven full seasons at the
program's helm. Under Reid's watch the Cougars earned five NCAA tournament
berths as well as an NIT. Reid was named WAC and district coach of the year
twice and his career winning percentage of .667 is the highest of any coach
with more than two years in the position in the school's NCAA-era history. Reid
also spent 11 seasons as an assistant at BYU, working under both Frank Arnold
and Ladell Anderson.
While
at BYU Coach Reid mentored 11 players who went on to be drafted into the
National Basketball Association as well as 13 more who joined the professional
ranks overseas. Included among that group are NBA standouts Danny Ainge and
Fred Roberts, who each have sons who have been affiliated with the current SUU
squad: former Thunderbird assistant Austin Ainge swingman Rick Roberts.
In
seven-plus years coaching at BYU Reid had 13 different players named
all-conference and he had three in two years at Snow College. Coach Reid also
coached players to 28 academic all-WAC awards, had two WAC freshmen of the
year, two players named to the WAC's all-defensive team and five all-WAC
tournament selections.
Four
of Coach Reid's teams led the WAC in scoring average and in field goal
percentage, and his teams led the conference in 3-point percentage three times.
He also had one squad which led the league in free throw percentage, one which
led in rebounding margin, one which led in scoring margin and one which led in
field goal percentage defense.
Coach
Reid is justifiably proud of his players' graduation rate. Fully 97 percent of
the players who have completed their careers on his squad have received their
degrees, an outstanding figure by any comparison.
Coach
Reid's teams at Brigham Young averaged 22 wins per year and during his tenure
he guided the squad to six straight seasons with 21 wins or more.
Reid
carries a career winning percentage of 69.8 in Western Athletic Conference
games after winning 83 of 120 conference games during his career, and he has a
home mark of 91-14, giving him wins in 87 percent of his home contests.
His
first team at BYU was picked to finish sixth but won the WAC regular-season
title after going 11-5 in league games and 15-0 at home as he earned his first
coach of the year award. He won his first WAC tournament title the following
season when his team upset No. 8 Utah and in 1992 he earned his second district
and conference coach of the year awards after the team went 25-7 (12-4 in the
WAC) and won both the regular-season and WAC tournament titles.
In
1993 he guided the team to its second straight 25-win campaign. That team won
12 straight games en route to repeating as WAC champions and also played Duke
for the championship of the Maui Invitational. In the next two seasons the team
won 22 and 21 games and in 1996 Coach Reid picked up his 150th win in just
seven seasons.
A
graduate of Weber State University, where he lettered in both basketball and
baseball, Coach Reid's first head coaching job was at Payson High School and he
also coached at Utah's Clearfield High. He is also a graduate of the College of
Eastern Utah, where he earned all-American honors in baseball and is enshrined
in the school's athletic hall of fame.
Reid
and his wife Diane are the parents of five children: Randy, who is in business
in Utah and New York City; Robbie, a former professional basketball player in
both Europe and South America who is also a graduate of the Harvard Business
School; David, who passed away in 1980; Darren, a graduate of Ohio State's law
school who is in practice in Utah; and Kelli, a graduate of the University of Utah.
