Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com

By Ray Hamill — The accolades continue to build for St. Bernard’s Matt Tomlin.

Two days after being named CalHiSports Division-4 coach of the year, Tomlin can add the 2023/24 Humboldt Sports Girls Basketball Coach of the Year to his resume.

That’s the sort of respect you get when you lead your team to a first-ever basketball state championship for the H-DNL, just a few years after leading the St. Bernard’s football team to a first-ever state championship for the league.

He’s also won a NorCal championship in baseball, which is as far as you can go in that sport.

What’s perhaps most impressive about Tomlin’s achievement this year is not just that he guided the Crusaders to a state championship, but that he led a Division-6 sized school to a Division-4 state title, beating numerous schools five times the size (or more) along the way.

As a coach, Tomlin is outstanding in just about all aspects of the job.

He knows strategy, he knows how to motivate and he always seems to get the very best out of his players, something evident in the way they always continue to grow on the court as the season progresses and always seem to be playing their best ball at the business end of the campaign.

And that’s something he does in every sport he coaches.

He also never takes a season off. 

He goes from football in the fall to basketball in the winter to baseball in the spring, and he does so with with ease, while enjoying tremendous success in all of them.

And he follows that every summer by coaching the Humboldt Eagles American Legion baseball team, barely taking 10 days away from coaching in early August each year.

Submitted photo – The St. Bernard’s coaches, from left to right, DJ Snowton, head coach Matt Tomlin, Sarah Shanahan and Martha Shanahan, celebrate their state championship in Sacramento earlier this month.

Perhaps the most impressive thing he does as a coach, in whatever sport he’s coaching, is to surround himself with quality assistants, something he has repeatedly said leads to his teams’ success.

Assistants Martha Shanahan, Sarah Shanahan and DJ Snowton all played key roles on the way to the state championship earlier this month and all deserve a ton of credit here as well.

But no one deserves more credit than Tomlin.

He is not just the 2023/24 Humboldt Sports Girls Basketball Coach of the Year, but he’s one the greatest coaches the H-DNL has ever seen, something his unparalleled resume of success points to.

And he continues to grow in the many roles he plays.

Runners-up — Cliff Napoleon (Eureka) and Charlie Espinoza (Arcata).