Basketball
TERRY STOTTS RETURNING TO GUAM!
Former NBA head coach makes his first visit back since 1985
By Patrick Lujan
Former NBA head coach Terry Stotts finally gets his chance to come back to the island he once called home.
For the first time since 1983, Coach Stotts will be coming back to Guam to spend time with family who reside on island along with his mother Jayne.
He will also be inducted into the University of Guam Sports Hall of Fame on Saturday, November 6.
The head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers from 2012-2021, Stotts has always wanted to return to see how the island has changed but coaching basketball has always been beyond a normal full-time job.
“I need to go back one of these days,” Stotts told me in 2016 after a Blazers-Mavs game in Dallas. “I need to go back with my mom.”
The Stotts connection dates back to 1969 when Frank and Jayne Stotts came to Guam to teach. Terry was 11 years old, brother Mark was nine and twin siblings brother and sister, Arlyn & Audrey were 7.
Frank Stotts was a pioneer in Guam basketball, becoming the first basketball coach ever at UOG and was the very first to expose Guam players to off-island competition.
According to Mark Stotts, Terry’s brother who still lives on Guam, Terry moved to Indiana in 1974 after their parents divorced. Terry would visit Guam frequently for the next nine years as his dad Frank stayed behind until 1992.
Now Jayne Phelps, the 85-year-old mother of the Stotts siblings, has been back to Guam more in recent time to visit Mark, two grand children and five great grandchildren.
To this day, the play of Terry Stotts on the courts of Dededo Junior High (now Benavente Middle School) and JFK High School is legendary. The stories will be fresh with former island stars like Joe Taitano, Tony Susuico and Ben Lizama.
During our talk after the 2016 game, he even started singing the old Johnny Sablan song, “Hafa adai, Todu Maolek, How are you?”
Despite going 42-30 last season, Stotts’ nine-year run with the Trail Blazers ended after their first-round playoff loss to the Nuggets. He owns a career 517-486 mark over head coaching stints also with the Atlanta Hawks (2002-2004) and Milwaukee Bucks (2005-2007). He started his NBA coaching career in 1992 as an assistant with the Seattle SuperSonics, where he was part of the 1996 Sonics team that went to the NBA Finals against Michael Jordan and the Bulls.
Welcome home Coach Stotts!