Sacramento State coach Andy Thompson prepares to face the team he thought he’d never leave
Soon after Andy Thompson delivered a pep talk to his Sacramento State football team late Wednesday afternoon, another player approached. It was the coach’s young son, Austin.
Thompson was preparing the FCS No. 9 Hornets for Saturday’s home game against Northern Arizona — a program he thought he’d never leave — when Austin showed up wearing green Crocs, a red pirate headband, a gray T-shirt, blue sweatpants and a broad grin. The boy with a striking fashion sense and a striking resemblance to his dad reached into his backpack and retrieved, of all glorious things, a football.
A coach’s son with a ball in a sack. Fancy that. Every so often, Austin and kid brother Teague stop by after practice at Hornet Stadium to get their work in and some quality time with dad. Or to scale the goalposts, their sudden favorite hobby outside of football. This endeavor concerns the father because they’re getting closer to reaching the cross bar, 10 feet above the ground, and kids don’t bounce off hard surfaces quite like a football.
Austin’s shirt included the emblem of his father’s Pacific Northwest roots — Walla Walla High School, home of the Blue Devils. When told his dad was a star quarterback for Wa-Hi back in the day, a starstruck Austin beamed. He shot a glance at his father and said with all the excitement of a kid confronting a pile of birthday presents: “You were a quarterback? That’s so cool! I thought you played linebacker.”
He did, at the University of Montana, where Thompson played five positions in getting a full understanding of how a team operates, inside and out, winning a national championship in 2001.
“Every day, I’m trying to make an impact on young people as a coach, and sometimes my boys are out here, too,” Thompson said. “That’s a pretty good life.”
Thompson expected to be NAU lifer
Thompson, 42, is basking in the good life in a place he never expected to be. He is in his first season as the Hornets head coach after serving as defensive coordinator for four seasons, a run that included three Big Sky Conference crowns.
Thompson was a small-town product who loved the outdoors, so he fit in at Walla Walla, the son of a coach and the grandson of another. He fit right in at Montana, which is Big Sky country to the core with nary a strip mall or a skyscraper in sight.
Two days after graduating from Montana in 2004, Thompson landed his first coaching gig, as an assistant at Eastern Oregon, a small college program where 20-hour bus rides were the norm. Thompson soon landed at Northern Arizona, where he was a fixture in Flagstaff for 13 years, 10 as the defensive coordinator. That’s where Thompson and wife Mikal set down roots and had their three sons. They never thought they’d leave.
Thompson in 2018 was led to believe he would be the next head coach of the Lumberjacks, but a change in athletic administration altered his course. The new athletic director brought in his own coach, which happens in this business, and feelings be damned. Thompson was stunned. He was hurt. And he was suddenly without a job.
But just as Thompson had told many of his pupils, it’s how one responds that matters. He had to live that motto. For a country boy, that meant getting back on the horse for another ride.
Thompson accepted the defensive coordinator post at fellow Big Sky member Southern Utah before the 2019 season, but he was in Cedar City for just seven days. Freshly hired Sacramento State coach Troy Taylor was in search of a defensive coordinator in a conference that features a ton of scoring. Working his college resources, Taylor kept hearing the name Andy Thompson as an established, highly regarded defensive coordinator.
Taylor and Thompson talked by phone, connected, met in person, connected some more, and they agreed to merge minds in their quest to turn the Hornets around. Sacramento State coaches for a spell before the 2019 season lived in a house, like bachelors, with pizza boxes, Chinese food and piles of laundry. They bonded.
Moving on up
Taylor, now in his first season as head coach at Stanford, told The Bee of Thompson in 2021: “He’s the smartest football guy I’ve been around, and I’ve been around some really, really smart guys, The plan he puts together, his composure, the way he takes care of his guys ... he’s as valuable as they get.”
Taylor told The Bee leading up to Sacramento State’s game at Stanford this season: “Andy’s an excellent coach, a great person. He’s made for this.”
Thompson, who was tapped to replace Taylor when he left for Stanford, steered the Hornets to a 3-0 start, including a stirring win at Stanford and a No. 4 FCS ranking before a 36-27 loss at Idaho last week. This is Thompson’s team now, and it was his message that had to resonate. Now, the coach prepares for a Northern Arizona program that stunned Montana 28-14 for its first victory.
Funny circuit and cycle, this college football gig. Thompson agreed.
Sacramento State is coming off its first Big Sky loss since the 2019 season, ending a streak of 19 consecutive conference victories. Thompson has huddled with his staff on a plan to bounce back, a crew that includes associate head coaches Bobby Fresques, the offensive coordinator, and Kris Richardson, the offensive line coach. Thompson didn’t know either of them until he landed in Sacramento, and now they’re close friends. Fresques and Richardson interviewed for the Hornets head coaching vacancy and made it known they wanted to remain intact as a staff regardless. They encouraged Hornets athletic director Mark Orr to elevate Thompson.
“Yeah, it’s a different experience for sure to lose,” Thompson said. “I’m trying to be the same guy and always be consistent, but nobody likes the feeling when you lose. But we’ve got a chance to get back out and change that, sharpen our skills and practices, and we always try to make it about what we can control. That’s our attitude and our effort. We’re going to try and be better this week, all the guys doing their job, and that goes for us coaches, too.”
‘A smooth transition’
Thompson took a moment to reflect on not landing what he deemed a dream job at Northern Arizona.
“I definitely wanted to coach there and I had given a lot to that institution, and they decided to go in a different direction,” Thompson said. “I respected that. Fortunately, I had some people who called me and I had the opportunity to keep coaching. I really do enjoy this profession. I’m thankful for the opportunity here. I love the coaches and our players, and we love living here.”
The Hornets have backed their new coach.
“Great coach and he has our attention,” Hornets standout linebacker Armon Bailey said. “We knew he was a really good coach when he was coaching the defense. It’s been a smooth transition.”
Thompson and his bride since 2008, Mikal, have delighted in watching their three boys grow up, play sports and chase each other around the yard. Their early years were in Arizona, so the state has extra meaning.
“It’s a special place, where my sons were born and all the players I coached, so definitely some significance,” Thompson said.
Embracing grandfather’s legacy
Saturday’s home game is Breast Cancer Awareness Night at Sac State. Pink shirts will fill the seats. Thompson said he hasn’t lost anyone in his family to breast cancer, but he did lose his grandfather, Roy, to colon cancer. Thompson was 13 at the time. It was a crushing blow to lose a role model as a young teenager who lived to impress his father and grandfather, both coaching lifers.
Thompson’s father, Mark, coached him at Wa-Hi, where Thompson also helped lead his basketball team to a state championship, and someday maybe he’ll break that news to his sons, too. Mark Thompson was a 1969 Wa-Hi graduate who played in the trenches at Whitman College in Walla Walla for his father, Roy. The coaching tree lives on.
“Losing my grandfather to cancer left an impact on me,” Thompson said. “He seemed to beat the cancer, but it kept coming back. It (wasn’t fair), but I got to watch him coach and I got to be around football with him and I had great years with him.”
With that, the coach peeled off and tossed the ball back and forth with Austin, who showed promising footwork despite the bulky Crocs. Nearby, Teague was tossing around a 10-pound medicine ball when he wasn’t firing passes to his brother.
The good life indeed.
This story was originally published September 29, 2023 at 5:00 AM.