Aggies add Argenal to their arsenal
Over the past few months, UC Davis men’s basketball has become a community program. First, former Sacramento Kings player Jim Les was named head coach, meaning that his son Tyler — who already was an Aggie — would now have a literal father figure while on the court.
Next, Les made the relatively easy decision to bring back longtime assistant Kevin Nosek, who starred as a player at Davis High School before helping the Aggies win the Division II national championship in 1998.
And finally, Les has added one more piece of homegrown expertise to his staff with the hiring of Gus Argenal, a former UCD point guard coming back to his alma mater seven years after graduating.
“I love his energy and enthusiasm,” Les said. “The fact that he’s been an Aggie, the fact that he’s been a point guard … he fits the mold of having an understanding of the game that we want all of our players to have.”
After Argenal graduated from UCD with a bachelor’s degree in history, the young coach became a graduate assistant at Arizona State, while pursuing his master’s degree in education. It didn’t take long, though, before he was back home in Davis as an Aggie assistant for the 2005-06 season.
Argenal was in town long enough to marry his wife, former UCD women’s basketball player Hannah Turner, before a two-year stint on the staff at the University of Texas-San Antonio. Chico State was the next school lucky enough to earn the service of savvy former floor general, and that’s where Argenal was until the opportunity to come back to Davis arose.
“It’s an exciting time for me and my family to come back to a place we love,” Argenal said. “The university was great for me as student-athlete, and when I came back to coach for the first time, it was great. We’re just excited to be back in the Davis community.”
Argenal focused on strength and conditioning, recruiting and perimeter player development while in Chico. While these may be his fortés, he will be counted on to wear several different hats while with the Aggies.
“I know a lot of people on the West Coast, and when I was talking to them about filling my staff, numerous coaches … talked about Gus,” Les noted. “They talked about the high level of respect they had for him, and they thought he was an up-and-coming young superstar in this business.”
Argenal is no stranger to dishing out help. He still owns the Aggies’ single-game record for assists, with 13, and is seventh on the school’s all-time list with 274 dishes. This unselfish attitude has helped him thrive even when the spotlight drifts away.
“As a player, you look at what you see your coaches do every day, being out on the floor and in the weight room with them,” he said. “But then the other part of coaching you learn about is all those little things that coaches do behind the scenes.”
— Reach Benjy Egel at begel@davisenterprise.net
Short URL: http://www.davisenterprise.com/?p=65696
Posted by Benjy Egel
on Jul 23 2011.
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