On Sep. 11 Pacific University announced Jerod Gibson the interim head coach of the men’s basketball team for the 2017-18 season. Gibson, who has spent the last four years at Pacific as head assistant, was named to the new position after head coach Tim Cleary decided to resign after seven years with the program.
“I am excited for the opportunity as I have been doing this for a long time,”Gibson said. “The overall goal at some point in my life was to hopefully have a chance to be a head coach. It is very difficult to be a head coach these days at any level so the opportunity to run your own program and mess around with your own ideas is going to be fun, but also challenging.”
Gibson began coaching after graduating from Portland State University (PSU) in 2004. Throughout his career, Gibson has acted as a student assistant coach for PSU, assistant coach for Beaverton high school, and for eight seasons with one of the top Division II schools in the nation, Western Oregon, as the assistant coach.
Coaching under Cleary for the past couple of seasons was something Gibson said he was grateful for.
“I have been fortunate to have some very good mentors over the course of my coaching career,” Gibson said. “With Tim Cleary, one of the things I learned the most from him was his leadership style. He did not micromanage any of us in terms of assistants. He would say, ‘here are your responsibilities, get it done.’ He would let you know if he needed something done, but it was like, ‘take care of your stuff, I trust you that you are going to do a good job, that is why I hired you.’”
As for Cleary’s decision to leave, like many, Gibson was shocked on the announcement of Cleary resigning from the program. Cleary decided to get into real estate business and leave coaching all together as of now.
Pacific will begin looking for a permanent head coach this spring. Gibson said he hopes to secure the position after his first season.
“That is the ultimate goal and any time you can have an interim tag removed it is a bonus,” Gibson said. “All I can do is do the best job we can. Making sure our guys are doing the right thing and that we are moving the program forward. The way I have been going about business every day is like I am going to be the head coach for the next five years.”