Centennial boys basketball coach Josh Giles joins 500-win club – Press Enterprise

CORONA — Josh Giles was a boys basketball assistant coach at Glendora High School in the early 2000s.

Giles was gathering information on Glendora’s potential CIF Southern Section and CIF State playoff opponents for the 2002-2003 season and was particularly impressed by a team he had seen at a summer tournament in Santa Barbara.

“He called me up and said, ‘Dad, I just watched a team I’d love to coach,” John Giles recalled. “It was Centennial.”

And Giles got his opportunity the following season as Val Popov decided to step down after 14 seasons at the helm.

“I just really liked what I saw with them and thought maybe I could take this program to the next level,” Giles said.

Giles has helped transformed the Centennial boys basketball program into a perennial state and national power during his 21 season in charge. Centennial has claimed four CIF Southern Section championships, including three straight in the section’s Open Division (2021-23), and the Huskies also captured the CIF State’s Open Division title in 2022.

Wednesday, Giles achieved another milestone, as he picked up his 500th career victory with a 90-35 win at Corona.

“It’s been an awesome ride,” Giles said of his tenure at Centennial. “I really could not have landed in a better spot.”

The match almost never happened, however. The coaching position up the street at Santiago had opened up around the same time as the one at Centennial. Giles was a bit torn, so he called some coaching peers in the Inland Empire.

“Everyone told me to push for Santiago,” Giles remembers. “For one reason or another, I ended up at Centennial.”

Dennis Pratt was Centennial’s athletic director at the time and also was an assistant to Popov. Pratt remembered Giles, who, while playing for Glendora as a senior, scored 23 points to knock Centennial out of the 1996 playoffs.

“I told my wife, ‘The AD remembers me. I don’t know if that’s going to help me or hurt me,’” Giles said with a laugh.

Bill Gunn was Pratt’s assistant at the time and remembers being impressed with Giles despite him being only 24.

“We loved his energy and attention to detail,” said Gunn, who succeeded Pratt as Centennial’s athletic director and now oversees athletics and is the human resources coordinator for the Corona-Norco Unified School District. “Players gravitate toward him because he has been fair and consistent. It’s served him extremely well for 21 years.

“I talked to Josh before the game tonight and asked, ‘When we started this 20-plus years ago, did you ever imagine that you would make it to 500 wins and still be going?’ It’s a special night for Josh, for his family and for Centennial.”

Giles played for Mike LeDuc at Glendora and learned from his mentor when he was a player and an assistant coach.

“I don’t think there is anyone better when it comes to making in-game adjustments than him,” Giles said about Leduc, who now coaches at Damien and picked up his 1,065th career win Wednesday evening. “And I learned so much from him being his assistant coach. Stuff like knowing that a play is going to work but holding onto it until the second half. That way the other team can’t talk about it at halftime and adjust. He plays chess when others are playing checkers.”

Giles has guided the program to 19 Southern Section playoff appearances with a 20th all but assured this season. Centennial has captured 14 league championships and will look to add another one to the trophy case next week.

Those initial years at Centennial were a bit rocky, however. Giles has a phenomenal memory and remembers losing the first two league games. And the Huskies finished dead last in the Mountain View League his third year in charge.

“We lost at Santiago and at Norco that first season. And up until that point Centennial had never lost to Santiago,” Giles said. “Nobody was happy and I was not a well-liked person at times. But I always tried to keep my eyes on the bigger picture. We were trying to change the culture and also completely trying to change a style of play.

“I thought I was going to come in here and get thing going that first year,” Giles continued. “Everyone kept telling me it’s going to take three or four years to see everything fall into place the way I wanted. They were right, I was wrong.”

That persistence did pay off. Centennial claimed the CIF Southern Section Division 2A championship in 2007, which was the program’s first section title. That was the first season Giles had players who had been with him for four years.

Giles has received offers from private schools and colleges, but said it would be hard for him to leave Centennial now.

“I’ve got too much invested in my retirement to go anywhere else, but there’s also that little guy over there,” Giles said, pointing to his 12-year-old son J.J. “He wants to play for his dad, so I’d have to say there is at least seven more years here. Having a chance to coach my son would be a dream come true. After that, we’ll just see what the future holds.”