Pierce's experience assists team

By Aaron Juarez

The action on the other end of the basketball court stopped. After taking a bounce pass off of a teammate's steal and using a quick burst to get past the last defender at half-court, Lloyd Pierce had nothing but 47 feet of hardwood between himself and the hoop. Everyone knew what was coming and, for a moment, this was no longer a Tuesday night intramural basketball game in the Pat Malley Fitness Center, it was Toso Pavilion circa 1998.

Pierce took flight wearing a generic red intramural jersey with a plain "48" on the back, but upon closer look, it may as well have been his white Santa Clara jersey with "21" emblazoned on it. He slammed it home and a couple seconds later, a member of the opposing team came over and in-bounded the ball, continuing the game which had paused to watch the slam.

When he's not in Malley dominating intramural basketball, Pierce is hard at work in his first season as Assistant Coach of the men's basketball team and second year overall with the program's staff. Pierce provides the team with a valuable resource in being able to work individually with players on their skill development and also in being a mentor for the players to relate to on a personal level.

"Lloyd is a bright young guy and he relates well to the players," Associate Head Coach Steve Seandel said. "He can relate to them as someone who has gone through the program and played under this coaching staff before."

"Lloyd is a great guy personally," senior guard J.R. Patrick said. "If I ever have something I need to talk to him about, I can call him anytime. He gave all of the players his number.

"And his being out there in practice is almost like having another guard with us," Patrick continued. "He's helped me with the little things to polish up my game, like coming off of screens, getting set and knowing which foot to step off with to get by my man."

Pierce has been acknowledged as one of the most athletically gifted players to ever play at Santa Clara and during his four seasonsà(1994-95 to 97-98) was the main contributor to a Broncos defense which, in his senior season, led the WCC in forcing 18.0 turnovers per game. He saw action in Santa Clara's NCAA Tournament appearances in '94-95 and '95-96, and having played with such players as Steve Nash and Marlon Garnett, Pierce knows firsthand the tools for success in the WCC.

Following his college career, Pierce spent four seasons playing professionally in Mexico, Australia and Germany. While he still had a passion for playing the game, there were factors in playing abroad which eventually led him back to Santa Clara.

"The hardest thing was just picking up and leaving every single time," Pierce said about the travels in his pro career. "One of the difficulties of playing overseas is just getting there and nothing is set in stone. Every year is a new year, you have to pursue a different place and a different job, so a lot of it is out of your control. Also, just being someplace else for a long period of time just got hard."

Another drawback to Pierce's career abroad was the amount of idle time he had while not playing basketball. With few options or activities to do to pass the time or challenge himself mentally, Pierce became bored with the same old routine.

"Activity-wise, you just have a lot of idle time," Pierce said, about the times between games and practice. "Here, you're challenged mentally a lot more with what you're going to do in terms of your future, while there your future is determined by what you do on a basketball court. It felt a lot of the time like I was not productive outside of basketball."

After returning home, Pierce took a volunteer job with the basketball team last season, serving as the director of basketball operations. While he gained a feel for the intricacies of the program from working in the department, his position still limited him from taking an active role in practices due to NCAA rules.

Pierce got his chance to take on more responsibility when former assistant Antonio Veloso left Santa Clara to become the athletic director and head coach at the University of Great Falls in Montana. Soon after Veloso's departure, Head Coach Dick Davey promoted Pierce to his staff as an assistant coach and made it a full-time position as opposed to its previous status as a volunteer, graduate-assistant position.

"It's mainly another transition, really, for me to stop playing and jump instantly into coaching," Pierce said. "Every time I was working out to go play somewhere, I was also working out with a lot of guys over here and building relationships with that. Also, I was always around enough to talk to Coach (Davey) about the possibility of doing it."

"Mainly it was a matter of me getting my playing days out before I could get into it. I had expressed an interest maybe a year or two after I graduated and Coach egged me on into trying to coach and thinking of it as a possibility."

As a former player, and a recent one at that, Pierce still has the ability to take the court at practice when necessary and work individually with the players.

"Lloyd is good working with the guys on an individual basis," Seandel said. "He's able to touch on things and demonstrate things to players that the rest of us could not."

Adds sophomore forward Travis Niesen: "what he helps us with is, while we're in the middle of a five-on-five drill, he'll talk to us individually about something we may have done wrong. He'll help us with our individual skills and is very accessible to players outside of practice in case we want to work more on extra shots, rebounding or anything else."

Pierce's talents and competitive spirit still remain on the same level now as they were in his playing days.àHe still hates to lose and having played for some of the most successful teams in recent Santa Clara history, Pierce channels that confidence to his players.

"He hasn't talked about the tournament, but he has talked about the teams he played for here," Patrick said. "They had some tough guys on those teams and were a very tough-minded group and he tells us how those teams understood the sacrifices they had to make and that makes us want it as much as they did."

"He hates to lose," added Niesen. "He just makes sure we're competing and gets on us when we're not."

The energy Pierce helps bring to the team makes a significant difference in working with the players. His skill and experience not only benefit the players' improvement, but it also gives him credibility, and the players respect and appreciate him for that.

"That's a product of being young and at a similar age group as the players," Seandel said. "They can relate to Lloyd but at the same time he will still get on them when he feels he needs to."

With a promising start to his coaching career, Lloyd Pierce is beginning a new path in a familiar setting. While he'd like to stay at Santa Clara and improve his coaching chops, he will always look forward to the next challenge.

"You're always trying to move ahead, not so much individually, but as a person," Pierce said. "If someone came up and offered me a position where I could do more, I would be more than willing to take it. Obviously, though, my loyalties are with Santa Clara, so as long as I can stay here, I will."

Pierce's second stint at Santa Clara, this time as an assistant coach, gives him the chance to mentor players to creating moments on the court they will remember forever. In the meantime, for longtime Bronco fans, Pierce provides some great spectacles in Malley.

û Contact Aaron Juarez at (408) 554-4852 or ajuarez@scu.edu.