John Marshall head coach Mike Thomas, pictured, was hired to lead the boys basketball program on May 7 as the 11th coach in team history. He was formerly an assistant at Linsly and Wheeling Park.

GLEN DALE – The John Marshall Monarchs will be under new leadership on the hardwood this winter.

The Monarchs boys basketball team brough Mike Thomas aboard on May 7 to be the program’s 11th head coach in school history.

Thomas is a 2013 Wheeling Park grad and 2017 West Virginia University grad. He played one season of college basketball at Juniata College, and was on the coaching staffs at Linsly and, over the past two years, at Wheeling Park.

Thomas has also done group training for college and high school girls basketball players over that same time.

“We’re all very excited about the hire,” John Marshall Athletic Director Roger Simmons said. “He’s really enthusiastic, young, and I think he brings a lot of good things to the program. We’re excited to have him, we’re glad he chose John Marshall, and we know that he’ll be good for the program and be able to compete at the level we need to compete at.”

“He’s been involved with basketball for a long time, he knows how to develop young student-athletes, and that’s just what we’re hoping he does here at John Marshall.”

The newly-minted man on the sideline hopes to bring a new energy to the team.

“Come and support these kids because there’s going to be a lot of work put in this summer,” Thomas said of his message to Monarch fans. “We’re going to play an exciting brand of basketball, we’re going to be a tough, hard-nosed team. Hopefully we can pull some wins out in this first year and make these parents and fans proud, and bring some excitement back to John Marshall basketball.”

John Marshall went 5-18 last year, their season ending against Morgantown in the sectional semifinals. They underwent a coaching change mid-season with Neil McCormick taking over as interim coach.

The Monarchs were a young team last year, leaving Thomas with many holdovers from the 2023-24 squad.

“I’ve tried to watch some film from last year just to see who they are and what’s to come,” Thomas said. “They got a lot back- two seniors, eight juniors, there’s a lot there.”

The Monarchs did go 3-3 over their last six regular season games, a stretch that was encouraging to Thomas from the outside looking in.

“They didn’t start the season out great, and then you had the coaching carousel that happened in the middle of the year,” Thomas said. “But then you saw them at the tail end of the year start to progress and get better. Four wins to end the season, that tells me these kids are hungry and they want to win. They bought into whatever [McCormick] was saying and they played hard.

“If you can get kids to play hard, you can teach them anything. It’s hard to teach heart and hustle and the willingness to play defense. They’re tough kids, they listen, they seem pretty disciplined, and I think the main thing is they want to win. To finish the season like that where they could’ve turned it in, instead they finished strong.”

John Marshall has not seen great success on the court as of late, going 35-73 over the past five years, and finishing above .500 once in that span. It’s a turnaround that Thomas is eager to see through, and he hopes that the surrounding community shares his convictions.

“The main thing is just to get this team competitive,” Thomas said. “John Marshall- back in the day they had some great success- but recently, even when I was in high school, you see John Marshall on the schedule and not to be rude but it felt kind of like a homecoming game in football; ‘we can win this game.’ I want it to be where we’re going into other gymnasiums, we’re playing anybody, and we’re competing. The game’s close and we’re in the game no matter how the last couple seconds of the fourth quarter ends.

“I just want to bring excitement back to this program. They’ve got great facilities, they’ve got a great fan base, but I think they’ve unfortunately lost a little bit of excitement around it. You want to bring people in to pack the field house and get kids to want to come to John Marshall and stay to play basketball.”