Gavin Petersen will join the Pacific women’s basketball staff as an assistant coach, as head coach Lynne Roberts announced Tuesday. Petersen comes to Pacific with 11 years of coaching experience at Hawai’i, Idaho and Idaho State.
"It is fantastic for our program to add a coach with such quality Division I experience. Gavin has been an associate head coach at three reputable Division I programs and will bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to Pacific," Roberts said. "He is professional, friendly, and enthusiastic about coaching at Pacific and in the West Coast Conference. I am excited to welcome Gavin, his wife Karen, and their daughter Brea to the Pacific Tiger family."
Petersen has spent the last two seasons as an assistant coach and associate head coach at the University of Hawai’i, which returned to post-season for the first time in 10 seasons. Petersen was also on Rainbow Wahine coaching staff in 2002-03 when Hawaii participated in their previous WNIT appearance.
"I’m really excited about joining the Women’s Basketball family here at Pacific," Petersen said. "I’ve known Lynne for a while now and have always respected and admired how her teams play. Having been in the Big West last season, there is a familiarity that I have with this program already. To join Lynne and her staff is something that I felt was an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up on. I’m eager to get started as we move into the West Coast Conference and hope to add to an already stellar coaching staff."
Petersen, a native of Hawai’i, got his start as a team manager while earning his bachelor’s degree in in justice administration at Hawai’i Pacific. He then served as team manager at Hawai’i for three seasons while earning his master of science in kinesiology and leisure science degree before joining the Rainbow Wahine staff as an assistant coach for the 2002-03 and 2003-04 seasons.
From 2004-2008, Petersen served as an assistant coach and associate head coach at Idaho State, where he helped to lead the Bengals to a Big Sky Conference title and an NCAA tournament appearance in 2006-07, as well as a pair of WNIT appearances in 2005-06 and 2007-08 under head coach Jon Newlee.
Following Newlee to the University of Idaho as the associate head coach in 2008, Petersen helped turn around the Vandals’ program, as Idaho made just its’ second post-season trip in program history with a WNIT appearance in 2011.
Petersen joins a Tigers program that is coming off back-to-back post-season trips, with three WNIT victories in the last two seasons. Pacific advanced to the third round of the WNIT in 2013 after a second round appearance in 2012. Pacific will be making its West Coast Conference debut in women’s basketball in 2013-14 after closing the Tigers’ tenure in the Big West with a conference title last season.
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