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Charles L. Thomas, Jr.
Class of 1970 Athlete  Charlie Thomas is considered one of the outstanding basketball players in Blue Streak history. He was a member of the basketball teams from 1966-1970, Charlie is still remembered by Blue Streak fans for his shot that would have given HHS the 1968 state championship but was ruled by the officials to have occurred after the buzzer. At HHS, Charlie received recognition as an All-District and All-Regional performer. In his senior year he was a 1st team All-State and honorable mention All-American selection. Charlie finished his Blue Streak career with 1,119 points, at the time the 2nd most in HHS history. After graduation from HHS, Charlie played 2 years at Ferrum Junior College and was named an honorable mention junior college All-American. Charlie went to Virginia Tech for his junior and senior years and was a starting guard on the 1973 National Invitational Tournament champions. He was selected to the NCAA All-South 1st teams in both 1973 and 1974. After graduation from Virginia Tech, Charlie played and coached for several years in Europe and South America. He returned to the United States in 1979 and has been a college coach for the past 30 years. For 17 of those years he was the head coach at San Francisco State University. Charlie was the Northern California Athletic Conference Coach of the Year in 1991 and 1994, and led his team to the Western Region semi-finals of the NCAA tournament in 1994. Since 2007, Charlie has been assistant basketball coach at West Hills College in Coalinga, California. |