Bob Pietrack is anything but an interim head coach.
The leader of the No. 8 Fort Lewis College men’s basketball team has carried that label all season since taking over for longtime head coach Bob Hofman in June. Hofman was asked to transition into retirement after 19 combined seasons coaching the Skyhawks and agreed to stay on as head coach emeritus for a 20th and final season with the hopes Pietrack would earn the head job.
Emeritus and interim: two confusing titles for two great Skyhawks who have dedicated a combined 36 years to Fort Lewis men’s basketball.
Though Hofman will no longer be a member of the coaching staff next season, Fort Lewis athletic director Gary Hunter said he has every intention of keeping Pietrack.
“He has never really been interim,” Hunter said Friday in a phone interview with The Durango Herald hours before the Skyhawks capped off a 24-3 regular season, the best in program history. “The reason he had to have that tag when we did that last summer was because Bob Hofman is receiving a full retirement and full pay in this transition year. In our college’s staffing pattern, we can only have one head coach listed. In order for Hofman to get full salary, he had to be listed as head coach this year.
“Bob Pietrack knows from minute one that he has been our head coach. It has turned out wonderful.”
The 35-year-old Pietrack has made quite the name for himself. The lowest-paid coach in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference guided the Skyhawks to the regular season championship, becoming the youngest coach in RMAC history to accomplish the feat. He became the first person to win an RMAC championship as a player, assistant coach, associate head coach and head coach, and he is only the second head coach to lead his alma mater to an RMAC title, following in the footsteps of Jim Heaps of Colorado Mesa.
“I’m motivated to the very best job for the young men that I can,” Pietrack said. “I love Durango. I’m the truest of true ’Hawks, and I plan on staying here as long as they’ll have me.”
Pietrack is preparing his team for the RMAC Shootout tournament that the Skyhawks have earned the right to host. Action will begin at 7 p.m. Tuesday when FLC takes on Colorado State University-Pueblo.
The season started with an exhibition win at Division I Wyoming and hasn’t slowed since. The Skyhawks are 14-0 at home and 2-0 on neutral courts.
FLC has won 12 games in a row since a 75-72 road loss to Colorado Mesa. Fifth-year senior Cade Kloster said he saw Pietrack grow as a head coach that night when he gathered the team in the hotel and said a few words that energized and propelled them on this winning streak.
“Coach has a lot of emotion and focus and exudes that through his team,” fifth-year senior Jared Smith said. “From the seniors down to the redshirts, he wants the guys to play with that heart and emotion that he has. You see him out there kind of stomping around and getting into the game, and it just makes you want to work that much harder.”
Hunter has noticed how hard the team competes for Pietrack, who commands a group of players he personally recruited and stuck by despite any injuries or hardships they’ve encountered. The former player is a true player’s coach.
“He’s the one who convinced me to come play here, and he supported me through my ups and downs,” fifth-year senior forward Kody Salcido said. “He was always there for me and always the guy who said, ‘You’re going to be good, just keep working hard,’ and I appreciate that. He’s been a great friend and coach.”
Hofman said he also believes the team is playing with more grit this year.
“It’s obviously worked out for the best,” Hofman said in an interview before Fort Lewis named the court inside Whalen Gymnasium in his honor earlier this month. “They’re playing with more of an edge I think than if I was coaching, which I appreciate.”
Pietrack played for Hofman at FLC, earning captain and team MVP honors in the 2003-04 season. The 1999 graduate of Eagle Valley High School still holds the Colorado Class 3A record for career assists with 702. His wife, Lauren, also is a Fort Lewis graduate and has taken over as head coach of the cheer team. They are expecting their first child later this year.
Pietrack lives and breathes Fort Lewis basketball, and he’s an encyclopedia when it comes to RMAC and Division II basketball. Though coaching the Skyhawks is his dream job, Hunter believes Pietrack has a future coaching in Division I.
“We’re going to do all we can to keep Bob and (assistant Daniel Steffensen) around. They couldn’t have done a better job in their rookie seasons,” Hunter said. “They’ve brought us national attention we haven’t had in a number of years, and it’s very good for the athletic department and school.
“Bob played here and has coached here for a number of years. I told him what I think we ought to do with him is win three or four conference championships and move him up to Division I.”
After 11 years as an assistant, Pietrack has proven he can handle the job. Now it’s his to hold onto.
“I’m no different than any other person in Durango,” he said. “I’m just a young professional who is trying to get himself in position to be an old professional.”
heraldsports@durangoherald.com
