Former USD guard Nate Tibbetts follows coaching route
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part one of our two-part series. Next week, we will cover a player’s perspective on the road to the NBA, with former Coyote shooting guard and 2012 USD graduate Charlie Westbrook.
Former USD basketball player Nate Tibbetts found a way to make it to Cleveland, Ohio.
Still, he managed to make it there. Tibbetts, 35, has a job others in the basketball community probably covet. He’s serving in his second season as a coach for the National Basketball Association’s Cleveland Cavaliers.
After years of coaching in the lower ranks of basketball, Tibbetts said it was “extremely exciting” for him when he was hired for the job in December 2011.
“It’s the best league in the world and I’m thankful everyday that I’m here,” Tibbetts said. “Hopefully I get to stay here for a long time.”
Tibbetts is the fourth assistant coach for the Cavaliers, working under head coach Byron Scott. Tibbetts also helps with the team’s offense, and presents reports to the team around 20 times a year.
He also gets to work with three to four players on a daily basis. Among the players Tibbetts has worked with are men like all-star point guard Kyrie Irving, former North Carolina standout Tyler Zeller, and other talents like CJ Miles and Daniel Gibson.
“I feel like a big part of what we’re doing,” Tibbetts said. “I love my role. I’m getting to learn from a great coach in Byron Scott, and I think our organization is pulling it the right way. We’ve got some young guys to build around, and I’m really excited about our future.”
Tibbetts’ path to the NBA as an assistant coach started from a young age. He was raised in a home where basketball was a constant presence.
“My dad was a basketball coach for a number of years,” Tibbetts said. “I grew up in the gym. It was in my blood.”
Tibbetts’ father, Fred Tibbetts, coached the USD women’s basketball team from 1986 to 1990.
Tibbetts said his father’s passion for the game and the fact he loved being around his teams played a factor in his own career as a coach.
“I always felt like a coach on the court,” Tibbetts said. “And I think that my dad instilled that in me. There was nothing better, in my mind, at that time, to have a father as a basketball coach and allow us to be in the gym everyday.”
While his father was coaching at USD, Tibbetts spent time as a ball boy for the men’s basketball team. He said he looked up to multiple players who represented the Coyotes during those years.
“It was always kind of a dream of mine to someday play at USD,” Tibbetts said.
The dream soon became a reality. After excelling as a standout point guard for Roosevelt High School in Sioux Falls, Tibbetts was given an opportunity to continue his college career as a Coyote.
USD head coach Dave Boots had connections with Fred Tibbetts, having been hired while the latter was still the women’s coach for USD. Boots said he knew Nate Tibbetts from a young age, and watched him through his high school years.
“(Nate) was a true point guard,” Boots said. “He just had this chemistry about him, a coach on the floor.”
Eventually, Tibbetts was offered a scholarship to play basketball at USD. This came after becoming an All-State player for Roosevelt High School as a two-year starter.
“It was great,” Tibbetts said. “I was going into my senior year and we went to a team camp in Vermillion and I had been recruited. We sat down with Coach Boots and he offered us a scholarship and I accepted it a few days later. It wasn’t a tough decision.”
In his four years at USD, Tibbetts accumulated 678 assists and 215 steals. Both of these totals rank second all-time in the school record books. He also earned an All-NCC team honor in 2001.
In addition to his individual accomplishments, Tibbetts also helped the Coyotes win three straight North Central Conference championships in row.
Tibbetts said as a player at USD, he knew coaching was in his future. He also considered himself an extension of the coach as a point guard.
“I had a lot of great players around me,” Tibbetts said. “And I was in charge of getting all those guys shots. I try to take pride in being a leader.”
Coach Boots said Tibbetts was able to deliver when needed as a point guard for the Coyotes.
“There’s so many intangibles that coaches look for in a program and once you get a good leader like that you get success and he led us to three conference championships so I think he backed everything up,” said Boots.
Shortly after Tibbetts’ playing career ended in 2001, he was hired to become an assistant coach for the University of Sioux Falls men’s basketball team. Shane Murphy, a former assistant and player for USD, had recently accepted the head coaching position at the school.
Murphy said the “intangibles” that Tibbets had brought with him to USD. He said that they played a role in him being hired as a coach at the school.
“When I first became a head coach at the University of Sioux Falls I knew that he was the guy I wanted to go after for those exact reasons,” Murphy said.
Tibbetts’ role as the USF assistant was to help with recruiting and the skill development of the team’s guards.
Every season Tibbetts served as an assistant for the Cougars resulted in at least 20 wins. In the 2003-04 season, USF broke the record for most wins in a year at 26 while making it to the NAIA Final Four.
In May of 2005, Tibbetts resigned from his position at USF. Despite leaving the program, Tibbetts had good thoughts about his tenure there.
“We had a lot of success,” said Tibbetts. “Shane Murphy did a great job of taking over an already pretty good program. I really enjoyed my time there.”
Murphy said that he knew that he was losing a unique individual in the realm of basketball coaching.
“As a head coach, my job is to prepare my assistants for the next step in life and then their careers, and I feel that’s really what it all was,” Murphy said. “So when Nate came and he decided to move on to other things, I just wanted him to do well and be successful in the next endeavor that he took on. When your goal is to help them try and become the best that they can be, for him, it was coaching basketball.”
Tibbetts’ time away from the court was short-lived. The Sioux Falls Skyforce of the NBA Development League hired him in August of the same year. Tibbetts served two seasons as an assistant coach for the Skyforce before taking over as the head coach of the organization for two more.
As a coach in the development league, Tibbetts talked about the various challenges faced there.
“The D-League tests any coach as much as you can be tested just because day-to-day, week-to-week. You can have players called up to the NBA, you can have players called overseas, you can have players get cut and have ten people on your roster,” Tibbets said.
Tibbetts’ first exposure to the NBA occurred after he was hired by the Tulsa 66ers in 2009. The team was owned by the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Tibbetts was able to travel with the Thunder during the NBA playoffs and managed to be around the team’s facilities and star players, including Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook.
Soon afterwards, Tibbetts was given the chance to be an assistant with the Cleveland Cavaliers. His experience traveling with the Thunder helped prepare him for the transition into the NBA.
“I got to be around (the Thunder) everyday,” said Tibbetts. “So that was a great opportunity. Coming to Cleveland was good for me because I had been in an NBA locker room at different times. Not all the time, not full time, but I had gotten a taste of it and I really enjoyed it.”
Tibbetts’ brother, Luke, grew up alongside his brother in the family’s home. Luke, 31, was a basketball player for USD from 2001 to 2005, even being a redshirt player during his older brother’s last season at the school.
Luke said that his brother carried similar traits to their father Fred Tibbetts, who also coached the Roosevelt High School girls’ basketball team and Jefferson High School.
Luke helped his brother in the basketball sessions. He said that they trained players in the basement of a good friend’s home.
“We just did workouts, more on a one-on-one basis,” said Luke.
When it eventually turned into a school for basketball players to train at, Tibbetts’ mother, Micki, thought of the idea for the academy’s name. Its full name is the Fred Tibbetts Instructional Basketball School, in honor of Nate’s father. Fred Tibbetts passed away from colon cancer in February of 2008.
“We thought that it would be a good name,” said Tibbetts. “It kind of stuck and when I was in Sioux Falls, I stayed really busy with that in the summer time and then I moved to Tulsa.”
After Tibbetts moved on to coach the Tulsa 66ers, he left the academy to his friend Matt Wilber. Now, TIBBS is run by Sanford Health. Many players, from the elementary school level to college level, take advantage of the different clinics and camps run by the organization.
“It’s just a wide range,” said Tibbetts. “It’s giving basketball players an opportunity to improve.”
TIBBS basketball is still around the Sioux Falls area, and now has volleyball added as a sport to train in.
“It’s neat,” Luke said. “It’s very neat. Whether we go to the mall or to the family wellness or just to a Roosevelt basketball game, whatever it may be, it’s pretty neat to see all the Tibbs shirts out and about.”
USD is also still a part of coach Tibbetts’ life. He credits Boots and Murphy for helping him along the way in his career.
“I think about coach Boots a lot and the job that he’s done at USD,” Tibbetts said, “Coach Boots has played a big role in where I am today and I’m very thankful for that.”
Tibbetts said he’s glad to be in the National Basketball Association and has “made a home” in Cleveland. He and Lyndsey have lived in the city for a year and a half.
“Always be willing to try new things,” he said. “Go to basketball clinics, go to different practices, be a sponge, be open to new ideas and new things.”
