Loyola University announced the hiring of Richard Hinton to the Wolfpack men’s basketball staff in Aug. 15, assuming the position of assistant coach.
Hinton, a 32-year old native of DeRidder, La., brings valuable experience to the Loyola coaching staff. Before making the move to Loyola, Hinton previously coached the women’s basketball team at Southern University at Shreveport, La. Prior to that, Hinton served as the second assistant coach at Shores Christian Academy in Ocala, Fla.
There he was in charge of individual workouts and tended to fifth year seniors. He also helped oversee one of the top basketball programs in the nation. “Shores had the highest level of talent I’ve ever coached,” he said. “Everyone on the team moved on to play college ball.”
At Shores, Hinton’s team regularly played against other preparatory schools like Oak Hill Academy and Blair Academy of New Jersey, which, at the time, had current NBA star Luol Deng on its roster. Hinton also served as men’s basketball coach and recruiting coordinator at Hill College in Hillsboro, Texas, a Division I junior college.
Hinton, now assistant coach under Loyola University fourth-year head coach, Michael Giorlando, believes the experience and knowledge he gathered at his previous positions will help him at Loyola. “I have a great rapport with players. I’ve worked in several different types of offenses with many contrasting personalities,” Hinton said.
At Loyola, Giorlando and assistant coach Joey Stiebing have implemented the triangle offense, but Hinton has experience running several different formations including the flex offense at Shores Christian Academy, where they frequently ran man-to-man strategies because they were “showcasing talent” for major colleges. Hinton also ran the motion offense at Southern University and Hill College.
Hinton said working in this new style of offense under Giorlando, whom he met at Louisiana State University in 2001 when he worked as team manager for the men’s team, will be a valuable learning experience. “I expect to learn a lot here because I come from a contrasting style. Coach (Giorlando) knows I’m going to work my tail off,” Hinton said.
It’s the learning aspect Hinton is most excited about with joining the Loyola staff. “I know for a fact that I’m going to take something away from this experience,” he said.
Loyola University is unlike many schools because of its tight-knit atmosphere, and Hinton took notice right from the start. “It’s a community, family type atmosphere. Everybody in this community is pretty cohesive, and on the same page with one another,” Hinton said.
He said he thinks Loyola seems to have a greater focus on athletics than any of his previous stops in coaching. “It’s definitely a bigger scale as far as what they put into athletics. The budget is just so much better here. This is more large scale and just totally different from the other schools I’ve worked at,” he said.
Hinton explained the added exposure can pay off in more ways than one. “You’re going to get a lot more notoriety here. At the other schools you have got to do a lot more to get noticed, and you have to sell yourself more at the junior college level. We had to actually go on Web sites and publish our own statistics. Here, you just have to report the stats to the NAIA.”
Hinton says he is eager to help add whatever he can to the institution, and is looking forward to offering his experience to Loyola’s athletic program this year.
Dan Pitta can be reached
