Frostburg head coach Webb Hatch is heading into his 19th season this winter and he announced last week to his team and assistant coaches that it will also be his last as he will retire at the end of the 2017-18 season.
Hatch, the longest active head coach at Frostburg in any sport, took over the reins of the Bobcat basketball program in August of 1999. Fast forward 18 seasons and Hatch will leave Frostburg as the program’s winningest coach.
“This group of seniors, Tyler (Michael), Dalton (Gaus), Jeff (McMorris) and Chris (Coston), they are four-year seniors,” said Hatch. “When we recruited them four years ago, I was thinking this might be the last group of kids that I’ll coach four years.”
Hatch has plenty of momentum heading into his final season at Frostburg. He returns 11 players, an All-CAC Second Team selection (Michael) and the Bobcats capped last winter with an 86-80 overtime upset of No. 11 ranked Salisbury on senior day.
“I would love to see the guys that have been in the program that last three years make the CAC Tournament in their final year,” stated Hatch. “I think we have a nice blend of older players and talented newcomers and I do think that the returning players are very motivated.”
Hatch is excited for the upcoming season, but he was also quick to talk about the previous 18 years at Frostburg and several of his coaching stops prior to the Bobcats.
While Hatch has been a head coach at the NCAA Division III level for nearly 30 years, he has also served as the head coach at Nansemond-Suffolk Academy (Va.) and an assistant coach at Prince George high school. He served as an assistant coach at both Virginia Wesleyan College and his alma mater Virginia Military Institute (VMI).
Every year since 1980, Hatch has been involved in the game of basketball and he has served as a coach in 30 of the last 31 years.
“My biggest thought was how badly am I going to miss coaching,” added Hatch. “I’m still not sure about it and while I’m moving on from being the head coach at Frostburg, it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m giving up on coaching forever.”
During his time at Frostburg, Hatch and his Bobcat teams have captured 207 wins, including 90 in the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference and 36 in seven seasons in the Capital Athletic Conference.
Under Hatch’s tutelage, Frostburg has made 12 postseason appearances and a total of 24 players have earned all-conference honors.
“It’s amazing all the people that I have interacted with in my 40-plus years; players, coaches, officials and high school coaches that I’ve gotten to know through recruiting,” mentioned Hatch. “To me, the number of people I met through the business is staggering. I’ll miss several of those friendships that I’ve had throughout the years.”
Following the 2014-15 season, Hatch pushed his career win total to over 300 wins and was honored at the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) National Convention for reaching the milestone.
Prior to Frostburg, Hatch was the head coach at fellow CAC opponent Marymount for 10 seasons from 1987-97. He directed the program to 107 wins, the 1990-91 CAC regular-season championship and the 1991-92 tournament championship.
“As of this summer, I was one of 15 guys who are over the age of 70 that are head coaches and members of the NABC,” mentioned Hatch. “We are talking close to 1,400 schools at the Division I, II and III level along with the NAIA.”
Hatch opened his Frostburg career with 36 wins during the 2000-01 and 2001-02 seasons, the second-highest two-year total in the program’s history (trailing only the 37 wins from 1970-1972).
In 2000-01, the Bobcats finished 20-10 and captured their only AMCC Tournament championship and earned a berth to the ECAC Southern Region Championship Tournament for the eighth time in school history.
Hatch will begin his final season at Frostburg on Friday, November 17 at Case Western Reserve at 7:00 pm.
