| Maco Hamilton's last program rose quickly. |
Maco "Shark" Hamilton, who built the Union High School (Camas, Wash.) boys basketball program from inception to state champion in just three years, is the new men's basketball coach at George Fox.
The university will hold a news conference on Friday, Aug. 9, at 11 a.m. in the Grand Ballroom of the Multnomah Athletic Club in downtown Portland, Ore., to announce the hiring of Hamilton and introduce him to the media and the public as the Bruins' new coach.
Hamilton, 35, was the school's first boys' basketball coach when Union opened in 2007. In 2009-10, his team won the 3A (the state's second-largest classification) Washington state title. He was named the Washington Interscholastic Basketball Coaches Association 3A Coach of the Year. In the school's first six years of existence, Union has gone 95-56 (.629) and won three league titles, two district titles, three state tournament trophies and one state title. They finished seventh in the 2008-09 3A state tournament and third in the 2011-12 4A state tournament.
Hamilton's teams are known for their fast-paced offenses and pressure defenses. He has won or shared the last three 4A Greater St. Helens League Coach of the Year awards.
Hamilton has strong basketball connections in Oregon and Washington. He played at Fort Vancouver High School, Mt. Hood Community College (1998-99) and Eastern Oregon University (1999-01). He has assisted at Mountain View High School (2001-03;04-06), the University of Portland (2003-04) and Ridgefield High School (2006-07).
A 2001 graduate of Eastern Oregon, Hamilton worked as a multicultural youth outreach coordinator and student advocate at Mountain View (2001-06) and as a guidance counselor at Ridgefield (2006-07) and Union (2007-13). He earned his masters in education from City University in 2006.
Hamilton serves on the board of Courts for Kids, a non-profit organization that sends sports teams to economically disadvantaged areas where they partner with local organizations to build courts for use by youth. He has joined Courts for Kids trips to the Philippines, Uganda and Costa Rica.
This spring Hamilton joined a U.S. Department of State funded trip to lead a coaches' clinic in Uganda, where he worked with more than 200 coaches. In 2001, he played on an Athletes in Action team that traveled through Kenya playing professional teams.