After a month-long selection process, Sacramento State Athletic Director Terry Wanless announced Friday that Brian Katz has been named as the 13th men’s basketball coach in school history. Katz received a five-year contract that will pay him $125,000 per year – by comparison, former Hornet coach Jerome Jenkins received $88,584 in base salary last season.

Katz has spent the past 15 years as the head coach of the men’s basketball team at San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton. He was selected from a pool of more than 100 applicants who displayed a wide variety of experience and knowledge of the game.

“We had excellent candidates, so the process was very exciting for us in that regard. I felt like we could have gone a couple of different ways,” Wanless said. “As we evaluated all of the criteria that we were looking for in a head coach, we really felt like Coach Katz best fit all of the different criteria that we were expecting.”

Katz, 50, was one of three candidates chosen by a selection committee from the applicant pool to interview with Wanless during spring break. The other two interviewees were Tony Marcopulos, who is the head men’s basketball coach at Cabrillo College, and University of Washington assistant coach Cameron Dollar.

A Sacramento resident for 44 years, Katz graduated from Casa Roble High School in Orangevale and is a Sac State alumnus, having earned his bachelor’s degree in English in 1980. Wanless said that although the fact Katz is a former Hornet was a positive, it was not the most important factor in the decision.

“But there’s no question that when you can hire someone who has been a part of the university, it’s an advantage,” Wanless said.

Katz interviewed for the position on April 2 and said he was offered the job on April 7. He mulled over the decision for a couple of days and discussed it with his family before accepting the offer on April 9.

“We had more meetings last week and this week than I could ever tell you,” Katz said. “It was both exciting and stressful at the same time.”

During the selection process, Katz said he didn’t have a real bearing on his performance or of how likely it was that he would get the position.

“People ask me, ‘Did you have a feel?’ ‘How did you think you did?’ I never have any feel; I had no feel. I didn’t know if I did well or not well,” Katz said. “I’m too busy trying to figure out what to say to get a read (during the interview).”

Wanless said Katz was the right choice because he is a strong recruiter, is adept at developing players both on the court and academically, and is a skilled game-day strategist.

“And, very importantly,” Wanless said, “(Katz is) the kind of person who can connect the basketball program here to the Sacramento community and would have the support of the community in helping our program get better.”

Katz began his coaching career where his playing career ended; just five years after he finished playing basketball at Casa Robles High, Katz returned to coach the varsity boy’s basketball team at the age of 23. His tenure at his alma mater lasted only one year, after which Katz took over as the varsity coach at Center High School in Antelope. In four years there he led the Cougars to three section playoff appearances and one league title.

In 1987, Katz left Center High to serve as an assistant at Santa Clara University under head coach Carrol Williams for two years. Katz said experience will be vital to his success at Sac State.

“The Division I experience was tremendous, mainly because I worked in a great program ? in my mind, one of the best mid-major programs around,” Katz said. “I learned most everything that will help me (at Sac State) from that experience.”

Katz was then given his first college head coaching position at Lassen Community College in Susanville, Calif. in 1989. Four years later, he accepted the same position at Delta College. Katz experienced considerable success at Delta: He was named conference coach of the year six times and led the Mustangs to 14 playoff appearances and six conference championships. Overall his record in Stockton was 348-138.

“Upon reflection, it’s always hard to leave – it was a great, great place to work,” Katz said about Delta. “I had tremendous athletic directors there.”

When Jenkins’ contract was not renewed last month, Katz said the allure of coaching at his college alma mater was hard to resist.

“It’s quite exciting to be back – it’s probably everybody’s dream to do that, I think,” Katz said. “(I’ve) grown up in this community – entrenched in the community. My family is here ? so (there are) a lot of reasons for me to be interested.”

Katz met with his new players for the first time on Thursday and said he hasn’t really had the chance to evaluate the talent level of the team yet. Despite the limited time they’ve had with him though, some Hornet players said they like what they have seen so far from their new head coach.

“He seemed like he was very enthusiastic about the season coming up,” said sophomore forward Justin Eller. “He’s got a lot of passion for the game and he seems like he’s really going to get us focused for a successful season.”

“He’s a hard worker,” said freshman point guard Vinnie McGhee. “He just wants to come in and win.”

Both Eller and McGhee said they believe Katz will be able to improve on some of the problems the Hornets experienced en route to a 4-24 record last season.

“He’s going to be able to bring a lot of organization and structure to our program,” Eller said. “I think a more structured approach to next year’s season will help us out a lot.”

“The most important thing he would have to change this year would probably be our work ethic as a team,” McGhee said. “Get everybody in the gym and get our conditioning up ? I think that’s the one thing that we lacked.”

For Katz, the most important thing he said he wants to bring to Sac State is respectability.

“Right now we need to develop kids in a program that people can respect – by the way our kids conduct themselves on campus, their attitude, their effort in the game, in the classroom,” Katz said. “If we can create a program that everybody respects, I think, in time, we’ll be on the right track.”

Fernando Gallo can be reached at [email protected]