BRIDGEWATER, Va. - Former Bridgewater College head basketball coach Don Burgess knew Ronnie Thomas was destined to become a basketball coach.

"When Ronnie was playing for me at Bridgewater, he worked my summer camps all four years," Burgess said. "When it was time for the camp counselors to coach the little kids in games, Ronnie had a white-board and would be drawing up plays. My young daughter Kaley was his assistant coach. Coach (Alvin) Green and I would look at each other and say, that boy is going to be a coach."

Thomas did indeed enter the coaching profession, and recently he was named the head coach at Longwood University, becoming one of the youngest Division I head coaches in the country.

"It's been a whirlwind for sure," Thomas said of his first few days as Longwood's head coach. "The day I was named head coach (March 24) happened to be the same day the transfer portal opened. Definitely hectic, but everything is going well."

Thomas, a 2014 Bridgewater graduate, was a four-year starter for the Eagles and was a team captain during his final three seasons. The Roanoke native was never a big-time scorer, but he was capable of filling up the stat sheet. As a sophomore he recorded the last triple-double by an Eagle when he scored 17 points, grabbed 22 rebounds and dished out 10 assists in a game against Lynchburg. During his final two seasons as an Eagle, his scoring average hovered around the 10-point mark.

"As a point guard/point forward for us, Ronnie was never the tallest, never the quickest, never the strongest player, but he made up it for it with his competitive desire and his basketball IQ," said Burgess who coached Thomas all four seasons at Bridgewater. "On the court, he was an extension of our coaching staff."

Following graduation from BC, Thomas was selected as a Victory Scholar by the Sports Changes Life organization. Thomas played basketball in Ireland for one year with the Ulster Elks and, while playing abroad, he started postgraduate studies in sports management at the University of Ulster. While in Ireland, Thomas also coached with the Basketball Northern Ireland Academy and Ireland's under-16 Girls' National Team.

Thomas got his first collegiate coaching job in 2015 as an assistant at Guilford College under veteran head coach Tom Palumbo and one year later, he added recruiting coordinator to his job title.
Thomas had all the attributes Palumbo was looking for in a young assistant coach.

"When I met with Ronnie to talk about the job, we talked for hours about basketball. I knew right away hiring him was going to be a hit. I knew he was special," Palumbo said.
"It starts with the ability to connect with people, connecting with recruits, connecting with parents, building relationships with student-athletes," Palumbo explained. "The way Ronnie comes across, he has the ability to connect with anyone, no matter where they come from, who they are, young or old, it doesn't matter. And it's not fake. It's not an act, it's just who he is. It's genuine. People want to be around people like Ronnie.

"You're also looking for someone with a great work ethic," Palumbo continued. "At our level, you're probably only going to have one full-time assistant. You need someone who understands the crazy hours and is willing to put forth that effort."
Thomas was also adept at the on-court aspects of coaching.

"Ronnie was always really good at the Xs and Os," added Palumbo. "He would come to practice every day with new ideas, challenging what we were doing in a good way, trying to make us better. Here at Guilford, we try to be good on defense and rebound. By the third or fourth year, Ronnie was running our defense. He had a great grasp of what we were trying to do. During his time here, we were really good."

In 2017, the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) recognized Thomas as one of its Under Armour 30-under-30 honorees, a group of 20-somethings from all divisions of college men's basketball recognized for their early coaching accomplishments. 

Thomas was the Quakers' associate head coach for his final two seasons in Greensboro.  During his tenure at Guilford, Thomas helped guide the program to the NCAA Division III national tournament twice with the 2019 team advancing to the Elite Eight.
After his five-year stint with the Quakers, Thomas climbed the coaching ladder to the Division I level. He joined Griff Aldrich's staff at Longwood in the summer of 2020 as Director of Recruiting and Program Development and a year later he was named an assistant coach.

Thomas was comfortable in his role as a Lancers' assistant, but then, a couple of weeks ago, the college coaching carousel started spinning. Little did he know that he would be part of the ride.

VCU head coach Ryan Odom had long been rumored to be the guy going to Virginia. Before he was officially announced as the new Wahoos' head coach, the rumor mill had Aldrich leaving Longwood to join Odom at U.Va. in some capacity.
Virginia hired Odom, Odom hired Aldrich, and Longwood filled its coaching vacancy by promoting Thomas to the Big Whistle.

Thomas admitted the rumor mill, along with thinking about the possibility of looking for another job, caused some anxiety, especially for his wife Brittany, also a former Bridgewater College student-athlete who played lacrosse for the Eagles.
"I think it's always important to be where your feet are," Thomas said. "We were really invested in these student-athletes and invested in the Farmville community.  I think it caused much more anxiety for my wife than for me. Our daughter is less than a year old. My wife was starting to think, oh no, we're going to have to move. Where are we going to move to? I reassured her that, regardless of where we might end up, we were going to be fine. I just didn't know it was going to be here in Farmville as Longwood's head coach."

As Thomas noted, his first day as Longwood's head coach coincided with the opening of the transfer portal. The landscape of Division I hoops has changed with NIL and the portal and it will continue to change in the coming years.

"You can either be stubborn or you can adapt," Thomas said of dealing with the challenges of NIL and the portal. "We can't worry about what decision a player may make in the end. We can only worry about his first decision – the decision to be part of our program. When they join our program, we're going to help them grow as players on the court and young men off the court. We're going to care for them and love them. Then, they will have to make another decision at the end of the season and that's up to them. Hopefully when they realize how much we've invested in their growth, how much we love them, they will decide to remain a part of our program."

Regardless of the obstacles or changes he is bound to face as a head coach, Thomas believes he is ready for the job.

"The biggest thing I learned from Coach Burgess at Bridgewater is believing in your players. Coach Burgess believed in me and trusted me as a player. As a head coach, if the guys know how much you believe in them you can inspire them to do great things," said Thomas.

"I've worked for two amazing bosses (Tom Palumbo and Griff Aldrich). While I was at Guilford, Coach Palumbo gave me a lot of responsibility in the program. Griff taught me so much, a lot of things that aren't basketball related. Those two have prepared me for this opportunity," Thomas added.

Thomas also stresses that his time as a student-athlete at Bridgewater helped mold him into the young man he has become.

"Bridgewater College is so special to me. It's not the beautiful campus, it's not the degree you're working toward, it's the people. That's what makes Bridgewater so special," said Thomas. "There was such a great variety of people from different backgrounds, different demographics. I met some amazing people there. I met my wife at Bridgewater. The professors, the staff, really cared about their students. I love that place."

Burgess and Palumbo both believe Thomas is ready for the rigors of running a Division I program.

"I know personally from having been a college basketball coach, coaching can be a mean profession, but it's an awesome profession" said Burgess who had stints at several Division I programs as an assistant coach before becoming the head coach at Bridgewater for a seven-year run. "Ronnie understands the commitment. I'm confident Ronnie will do a great job. He comes from a great family. He understands building a family-type atmosphere within a basketball program. Young men are going to connect with Ronnie and they're going to want to be a part of that Longwood basketball program."

Thomas takes the helm of a Lancers program that had little success at the Division I level until the arrival of Aldrich.

Longwood started the transition to Division I in 2004 and became a full D-I member in 2007. The Lancers had just one winning season at the Division I level until the 2021-22 season, Aldrich's fourth season at Longwood. The Lancers won the Big South Conference Championship in 2021-22 and 2023-24 to earn a spot in the NCAA Tournament each season. Longwood has had winning seasons each of the past four years.

Now, it's Thomas' job to keep winning in Farmville.

"Griff did a fantastic job at Longwood. The perception of what Longwood basketball was and what it is now is night and day," said Palumbo. "Ronnie will continue that pursuit of excellence and take the program to the next level.
"We don't talk every day, but we talk a lot," said Palumbo of his relationship with Thomas. "No doubt in my mind, Ronnie's ready for the job.  Zero doubt. He's a special coach."