Gaines Resigns as San Diego State Coach : It Has Been Downhill for Aztec Basketball Since ’85 NCAA Appearance

Smokey Gaines, less than two years after being named Western Athletic Conference coach of the year, resigned as San Diego State basketball coach Friday morning, effective at the end of the 1986-87 season.

Gaines, whose Aztecs (2-19) have 13 straight losses, met Athletic Director Fred Miller at 10 a.m. to inform him of the decision. After an hour’s meeting, they agreed it would be best for Gaines to remain as coach through the end of the season.

After the season, Gaines will be re-assigned as SDSU assistant athletic director for marketing and promotions through May 14, 1989, Miller said.

“I didn’t want to wait until the end of the season to announce this because I wanted give Fred ample time to find somebody else,” Gaines said at a campus news conference Friday afternoon. “I’m not a quitter. It’s just that I felt the program was going in the wrong direction. I wasn’t pressured (by anybody else) into my decision in any way.”

Miller said the search for a new coach would begin immediately, adding only that he hopes to hire an experienced coach. Gaines said that though he still will be involved in the basketball program, he will not have input into hiring his replacement.

“I would estimate that it won’t be until sometime around the Final Four (late March) that we’re able to get somebody,” Miller said. “That gives us six or seven weeks to conduct an orderly nationwide search for a new coach.”

Gaines came to SDSU from the University of Detroit in 1979 and led the Aztecs to an appearance in the NIT in 1982 and the NCAA Tournament in 1985. He has a 109-111 record in eight years entering tonight’s 7:30 p.m. game against Air Force in the San Diego Sports Arena.

“I was thinking about (resigning) as early as last year when we were 10-19,” Gaines said. “But then Fred Miller came in and I thought maybe things would start turning around. But things just didn’t work out the way I wanted them to this year. I figured why not give some new blood a chance to turn things around. I still share the dream that someday San Diego State will have a consistently top-notch program.”

Gaines’ program reached its peak in March of 1985 when the Aztecs defeated Texas El Paso to win the WAC Tournament and advance to the NCAA Tournament, where they lost in the first round to Nevada Las Vegas.

It’s been mostly downhill for Gaines and the Aztecs since, however.

An NCAA probation imposed on SDSU in January of 1984 for recruiting violations limited the school to only two new scholarships and a total of 13 for the 1984-85 season. The lack of players, Gaines said, contributed to the fact that SDSU has no seniors on this year’s roster.

“The probation definitely hurt us,” Gaines said. “Then, we’ve upgraded our schedule. I thought we would be able to handle it better than we did.”

It was Gaines’ inability to handle the Aztecs’ downhill slide that finally led to Friday’s decision. Gaines has been ill for much of the last month and he has lost almost 20 pounds. He missed last week’s loss to United States International University because he was fighting the flu.

“I’ve never felt like this physically before,” Gaines said. “I’m a health nut and I haven’t had my health.”

After the Aztecs lost Thursday night, 64-62 to Colorado State, Gaines was unable to sleep. He said it was then, during the middle of the night, he made his decision.

“I guess I could say I saw something like this coming,” said Gaines’ son, Darryl, who is a sophomore guard for the Aztecs. “He and my mother (Gaines’ wife Joanne) have talked it over a lot. He’s always told me he’s a winner so it’s sad to see him go out like this. But he wanted to give the administration a chance to find somebody else.”

The rest of the Aztec players were surprised by Gaines’ decision. Gaines met with the players before Friday’s news conference.

“There’s been a lot of talk about something like this, but two weeks ago (Aztec assistant coach) Mike Brunker told all of us that Coach Gaines would be here until we graduated,” said Gerald Murray, a junior, who has played for Gaines longer than any other active player. “It’s really pretty shocking right now.”

Aztec guard Josh Lowery sat outside the Aztec training room after the new conference with his head down.

“Right now, I’m feeling very down,” said Lowery, a sophomore. “His decision was obviously based a lot on how poorly we played this year. You start to wonder that if maybe you had done your job as a player a little better none of this would have happened.”

The Gaines Record

77-78 U. of Detroit 25-4 78-79 U. of Detroit 22-6 79-80 SDSU 6-21 8O-81 SDSU 15-12 81-82 SDSU 20-9 82-83 SDSU 18-10 83-84 SDSU 15-13 84-85 SDSU 23-8 85-86 SDSU 10-19 86-87 SDSU 2-19