Tom Hofman is set for his 41st season coaching basketball at La Ca\u00f1ada High, including 39 as varsity coach. He\u2019s a future Hall of Famer who keeps coaching at age 73.<\/p>\n
The key is his wife, Cindy, still enjoying basketball, which means Tom gets to keep coaching. They\u2019ve been married for 53 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like the kids,\u201d he said. \u201cMy wife still loves it.\u201d<\/p>\n
This will be the final season of the Rio Hondo League. La Ca\u00f1ada has won 31 league titles under Hofman. The Rio Hondo will combine with the Pacific League next season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t like it,\u201d Hofman said. \u201cIt\u2019s a shame.\u201d<\/p>\n
La Ca\u00f1ada has been running the same offense since Day 1, copied from the days of Bobby Knight at Indiana. \u201cWe tweaked it a little,\u201d Hofman said.<\/p>\n
That offense is the reason opposing coaches like to play zone defense against La Ca\u00f1ada. Players get beat for too many layups playing man-to-man against La Ca\u00f1ada.<\/p>\n
Hofman is most proud of coaching neighborhood kids and making sure everyone knows he never has recruited players.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did it the right way,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve never really made an initial contact.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Rio Hondo League held a media day Thursday at South Pasadena, with coaches paying respect to Hofman\u2019s longevity at the same school.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis passing game is amazing,\u201d Blair coach Derrick Taylor said. \u201cGoing 41 years is a long time. He\u2019s really amazing. He\u2019s a first-class guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s one of a kind as another basketball season begins next week. And he says this won\u2019t be his final season as long as his wife keeps enjoying the game.<\/p>\n
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Hofman is set for his 41st season coaching basketball at La Ca\u00f1ada High, including 39 as varsity…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":378341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[181642,181640,1582,276,2385,46887,181638,2961,181637,224,5337,115064,9323,111832,21427,181639,181643,181641,18913,1628],"class_list":{"0":"post-378340","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-41st-season-coaching-basketball","9":"tag-basketball-coach-tom-hofman","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-day","13":"tag-final-season","14":"tag-hofman","15":"tag-la","16":"tag-la-canada-high","17":"tag-los-angeles","18":"tag-losangeles","19":"tag-passing-game","20":"tag-player","21":"tag-prep-talk","22":"tag-respect","23":"tag-rio-hondo-league","24":"tag-same-offense","25":"tag-varsity-coach","26":"tag-wife","27":"tag-year"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115548161586480774","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}