BERT WEST HEAD COACH
Alma Mater: East Texas Baptist College
Phone: 903-923-2231 E-Mail: bwest@etbu.edu
today. “I’ve absolutely loved playing for him, even through the rough moments,” said senior post Josh Chambers, who scored 14 points in the record-breaking win. “He’s taught me so much about just being a person, a leader and a player. He’s a great person and his personality is one like no other. I’m going to miss playing for him when my career is over.” “Coach West has taught me a lot since I’ve been here,” said 20102011 se-
East Texas Baptist University men’s basketball coach Bert West doesn’t hesitate when asked the following question: was it tougher getting his first win with the Tigers, or the one that made him the all-time winningest coach in program history? “By far, the toughest was the first,” says West, who set the new coaching wins mark (220) in his 17th season at his alma mater on Sunday, Feb. 13, 2011, with a 65-64 win at Houston Baptist. “Back then, in my first year as a college coach, by the time I got the first one I’d come to think I’d never get one. This last one, I had almost forgotten all about (the record), I just was concentrating on getting our team back on track. But no question about it, the first one was the one that stands out for me.” That first win came back on Jan. 7, 1992, and snapped a 0-15 start to his tenure at ETBU. The win came against Park College at ETBU’s Keys Gymnasium. Michael Landers was a guard on West’s first team at ETBU, and remembers exactly how difficult it was for the new coach to get his first victory. “He used to tell me our teams were so bad at that time, I was his best player…and that was not a good thing,” remembers Landers, who graduated from ETBU and coached the Tiger women’s basketball program for three years before moving on to what has been a very successful coaching career in the junior college ranks at Trinity Valley Community College. “We struggled to say the least, but he demonstrated one of the greatest traits a coach could have during those difficult seasons. He taught me and my teammates lessons in life that I still refer back to today.” Life lessons are what West ultimately seeks to share with his players. Wins and losses are so fragile, such a difficult thing to control, that the Tigers’ coach is always trying to coach his players into being something else rather than just being successful on the basketball court. “I’ve learned over the course of my career, that being a basketball coach isn’t all about just coaching basketball,” West says. “I take as much pride in one of my former players being successful years later as I do in one of my current ones having success on the court.” West finally passed his good friend and predecessor Dr. Jim Webb, who had held the previous record at 219 since retiring from coaching following the 1990-91 season, with a last-second win at Houston Baptist. It was an ironic twist to a bubbling little saga within the 2010-2011 basketball season – the Tigers entered the rare late-season, non-conference game at HBU having lost three straight games by a combined seven points since tying the coaching record. And when it came, it came against an old bitter rival of West and the Tigers from when he started at ETBU, when the university was still part Bert West accepts a commemorative basketball from former Tigers coach and friend of the NAIA’s Big State Conference. Jim Webb, after West became ETBU’s all-time winningest basketball coach last FebThat theme of learning things other than basketball while playing for West ruary and passing Webb on the Tigers coaching wins list. continues, as evidenced by his players