Coach LIFE D WORDS BY DAVID CLAYBOURN
Former DJ-turned-coach knows all about working on the holidays
Jeff Thomason knows what it ' s like to work on Christmas Day .
The current head boys basketball coach and athletic director for the Boles Hornets worked every Christmas for four years as a deejay and radio station employee .
And now he ' ll be working the day after Christmas as the Hornets host their annual holiday basketball tournament .
Thomason , who was an all-around athlete at Archer City in West Texas , first got started in radio while a student at the University of North
GREENVILLE LIFE 10 HOLIDAY 2024
Texas . " I was a radio-TV major ," said Thomason . " I worked at the college radio station ( KNTU-FM ). It was a jazz station and I know nothing about jazz ."
But the experience working at KNTU helped him get a job after college at KPLX-FM 99.5 The Wolf , a Dallas radio station that played country and western music .
" I was very fortunate to work at a major market station coming right out of college ," he said . " I had to wait for an opportunity to be on the air and actually have a shift on the radio . What that meant was working holidays and being available when the regular on-air personalities weren ' t there , which was always Christmas ."
" I worked every Christmas holiday for the years 2000 to 2004 , even after I started coaching ," he said .
Thomason would play a regular rotation of Christmas songs , usually with a C & W flavor . One song that got played on the radio over and over was Vince Vance and the Valiant ' s " All I Want For Christmas ." It ' s one song that Thomason probably doesn ' t