Thomas B. “Tommy” Suitts, for over 50 years a devoted college and high school basketball coach who cared more about his players’ success in school and in life than his teams’ win-loss record, died in Santa Rosa, California, on March 26 after a decade-long struggle with prostate cancer. He was 74.
Born and reared in Haleyville, Alabama, Suitts came of age in nearby Florence where at Coffee High School he was an honor student and a sharp-shooting guard who became an All-State basketball star. On an athletic scholarship, he attended Marion Military Institute (MMI) where he earned honors on the All-Region team and the All-American team for junior colleges. Suitts graduated in 1967 as Battalion Commander (leader of the school’s cadets), valedictorian, and recipient of a basketball scholarship to the University of Alabama where he played for legendary coach C.M. “Fig” Newton.
At Alabama, as a 6-foot, 160-pound guard, Suitts was voted the team’s “Best Defensive Player,” led it in field goal percentage, and ranked second in scoring and free throw percentage. He was also named to the Southeastern Conference’s All-Academic team before graduating Phi Beta Kappa as a math major in 1969. Suitts remained at Alabama to earn a master’s degree in mathematics and to serve as an assistant basketball coach, helping Newton take the Crimson Tide to two Southeastern Conference championships. Afterwards, Suitts was assistant coach and chief recruiter at the University of North Alabama in Florence for four seasons as he helped the Lions win a berth in three Final Four tournaments and a NCAA Division II national championship.
In 1979, Suitts became the assistant basketball coach at Rice University in Houston, Texas, and, after a nationwide search, was named head coach in 1981. His first team at Rice won the Rainbow Classic Championship after defeating 18th ranked North Carolina State and 4th ranked San Francisco. From 1987-90, Suitts served as head coach at Chicago State University where with only five scholarship players he took his new Division I team to a 12-win season in two years and graduated more student-athletes than all of the school’s other athletic programs combined.
Due to family concerns, Suitts turned to high school coaching and teaching in 1991 and over these years served as head coach at six high schools in Texas and Alabama. “Tommy wanted to teach students with no apparent aptitude for math as much as those ready to learn trigonometry and became interested in coaching at high schools where the basketball programs had faltered,” his brother, Steve, remembers. “He enjoyed the challenge of awakening new potential and rebuilding from scratch a program and a team – while getting to do it his own way.” “His own way” often involved tutoring players and holding study halls in addition to disciplined basketball practices for the team.
In 2011, Suitts returned to Marion Military Institute as head basketball coach for one year. His team won the most games of any team in the school’s history, and Suitts continued coaching in his own way by personally supervising nightly study sessions for his players. He became head coach at Bevill State Community College in 2016 when the school’s basketball program was reinstated after a five-year shutdown. Across three seasons, Suitts rebuilt the program and by 2019 was named Coach of the Year in his division of Alabama’s community colleges. When he left the school in 2020, its dean of students stated, “Coach Suitts’ … aim was not always related to winning games, rather he was focused on developing great young men and ensuring that our players were on-course to achieve their maximum potential in life.”
“I am not leaving Bevill for another job,” Suitts stated at that time. “I am leaving to become a full-time granddaddy to my five grandchildren.” When he moved closer to his grandchildren, Suitts carried with him his well-used fly fishing gear and tackle box in hopes of finding trout in northern California as sizeable and plentiful as the large-mouth bass he often caught wading north Alabama creeks and rivers during basketball’s off-seasons. He also took with him the honor of having been inducted into Lauderdale County Sports Hall of Fame in Florence and the Alabama Community College Conference Hall of Fame.
Suitts coached some outstanding basketball players, such as former NBA All-Star Ricky Pierce, and even a governor (current Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin), but his family remembers he had the most pleasure in hearing from former players, and often their mothers, about the college degrees or good jobs they earned after playing for him. Undoubtably it is how Coach Suitts would want to be remembered.
Tommy Suitts is preceded in death by his mother, Wanda Epperson Suitts, and his father, Troy T. Suitts. He is survived by his children, Clint, Stephen, and William; his grandchildren, Majerle, Rhyan, Joaquin, Gavin, and Lukas; his brother, Steve; and his nephews, David and Phillip. A private family service is to be arranged. In lieu of flowers, gifts should be made in Tommy Suitts’ memory to a need-based college scholarship program of the donor’s choice.
