‘Vagabond coach,’ NMSU alum Owens joins the Lakers staff
The Hall of Famers who have worn the purple and gold of the Los Angeles Lakers got their starts at such basketball powerhouses as UCLA, Michigan State, North Carolina and Kansas.
The franchise’s great coaches went to Kentucky and North Dakota, while new head coach Luke Walton played at the University of Arizona.
Now, you can add to the distinguished list of universities that have produced future Los Angeles Laker employees both New Mexico State University and the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University in Boulder, Colo.
Those are where Las Crucean Casey Owens, officially announced Friday as an assistant coach and advanced scout for the Lakers, earned his bachelor’s degree in English (NMSU) and master’s of fine arts in creative writing and poetics (Naropa).
Owens, who coached the Aggies in June’s Battle of the Rio Grande alumni all-star game in the Pit, hardly took the typical path to Inglewood, Calif. But it’s one that seems fitting for a guy who some day plans to get back to his creative writing roots.
“It’s amazing, it really is,” said Owens, who coached the LA D-Fenders to the NBA Development League championship series this past season and has been coaching for 18 years. “It’s a huge opportunity for me, obviously. It’s something that you work for when you choose to make your career doing this and grind through the minor leagues like I’ve done. The NBA is obviously the ultimate goal, and I’m excited to start a new journey in this league, now.”
Owens, who went to Las Cruces High School and has relocated to Las Cruces — where he lives with his wife, Susannah; 12th-grade son, Tennessee; and eighth-grade daughter, Ophelia — never played college basketball. But while at NMSU, through friend Rus Bradburd, ironically a former NMSU and UTEP assistant turned creative writer, he was often around the Aggies basketball program in the 1990s.
After graduating, Owens wrote a book of poetry — “Desert Alien” — in 1996.
His dream was to teach creative
writing and maybe coach basketball at a small school.
Instead, he used his NMSU ties to land a gig with the New Mexico Slam in Albuquerque for the 1998-99 season for his first coaching job. Now, 18 years later with stops around the country and around the globe, he’s landed his first assistant coaching job in the NBA (though he was a video coordinator with the Chicago Bulls in 2007).
“Coaching has satisfied my teaching bug ever since,” said Owens. “That’s what I view myself as — a teacher of the game.”
He leaves for the Lakers job Sept. 1 and will try to get back to Las Cruces to see family as often as possible, including Tennessee’s games where the senior guard plays for Centennial High School.
“It kills me that I can’t be there for every single game,” Owens said. “The father-son part of it is tough, but as a basketball player he understands.”
Owens’ life as a “vagabond coach,” he says, has only been possible because of the patience and support from his family.
“You know, I don’t think people understand, you can’t do this if your family is not all in with you,” Owens said. “We’ve moved all over the United States. I took them to China with me. They went to school in Venezuela. For them to support my dream, it humbles me, and I’m very fortunate.”