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2007-2008 Coaching Staff
GORDON (GORDIE) JOHNSON
Head Coach - Men's Basketball
Email: gdjohnso@ucsc.edu
Phone: (831) 459-4532
Fax: (831) 459-4070
Entering his 10th season as the Head Coach of the UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs, Coach Johnson is within 14 victories of tying Duane Garner for the most career victories as a UC Santa Cruz Head Men’s Basketball Coach. With 36 wins in the last three years, he has exceeded the three year win total of any other coach in the history of Slug basketball.
Last year, Coach Johnson guided the Slugs to a 13-14 record, equaling their all-time high win total for a season. While doing so, Santa Cruz captured its first ever victory in the state of Washington, won the Pomona-Pitzer/Claremont-Mudd Tournament and defeated Claremont-Mudd for the first time in school history. Through his outstanding pressure-man defense the Slugs finished 9th out of the over 350 Division III schools for defending the three-point shot.
Prior to coming to UC Santa Cruz, Coach Johnson was a highly successful coach on both the Northern California high school scene and the highly competitive San Francisco Pro Am Men’s League. At St. Joseph’s Notre Dame High School in Alameda, he led the Pilots to the Northern California Championship and the State Championship Division I game. At St. Joseph’s, he helped mentor future college and NBA greats including Todd Lichti (Stanford and NBA Denver Nuggets), Jason Kidd (Cal and NBA Champions Dallas Mavericks), Ray Young (UCLA), Justin Davis (Stanford) and Calvin Byrd (Villanova). He was an assistant coach in 1991 (with the Fab Five) and for 1993 McDonalds All American Game. In 1998 he was named the Bay Area Coach of the Year. While coaching NBA greats Gary Payton (Seattle, Lakers, Heat and Celtics), Jason Kidd and Brian Shaw (multiple NBA teams including NBA champion Lakers), Coach Johnson helped lead the Bay Pride to the San Francisco Pro Am Championship in both 1995 and 1996.
Coach Johnson started his NCAA coaching career as an assistant at UC Santa Cruz in 2002 before taking over as Interim Head Coach for the last four games of the 2002-2003 season. Appointed as the Head Coach at the start of the 2003-2004 season, Johnson has been at the Slug helm since then, giving the program some much needed stability.
A long time resident of Northern California, Coach Johnson played football at both Merritt College and San Francisco State. After a stint serving our country in the military, he earned his degree from UC Berkeley in 1996. In 2002, he earned his Masters in Organizational Management. An outstanding athlete, Coach Johnson is a 3rd Degree Black Belt, played college football, was on two National Championship Slo-Pitch Softball teams and was named Player of the Year twice as well as All American 10 times in softball. His youngest son, Joshua Johnson plays quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the NFL.
JAMES PAGE
Assistant Coach - Men's Basketball
Phone: (831) 459-4532
Fax: (831) 459-4070
James Page begins his 9th year as an assistant for the Banana Slugs and his fourth year as UCSC’s lead assistant. He assists with all aspects of the men’s team including travel, recruiting, scouting and game planning. In addition, James helps coordinate fundraising and tutoring plus helps with development of the perimeter players.
James started his college career at University of Redlands under legendary coach, Gary Smith. At University of Redlands, James became well versed in the up-tempo game as the Redlands led the nation in scoring during his two years. James transferred to Santa Cruz for his junior and senior years and led the Slugs as team captain his senior year. Under the tutelage of Coach Johnson, James caught the coaching bug and has been a Slug assistant since his graduation from UC Santa Cruz in 2003. Two other of James’ teammates also started coaching, UCSC as all-time assist leader, Matt Robles is an assistant at University of Puget Sound and Chris Brazelton is currently an assistant at the Big West program, UC Riverside.
James graduated with a BA in Sociology and was honored as a National Dean’s List Merit Scholar.
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• Basketball
• Basketball
