When Ann Hancock took over the women’s basketball program in 2000, she and her mentor John Thurston joked about him becoming an assistant.

At the time Hancock already boasted a full staff of assistants, and Thurston ran the Suwanee (Ga.) Sports Academy.

“When I first got the job here, he said sort of jokingly is, ‘Well, I want to be your Al Brown.’ Al Brown … was the assistant at Tennessee. He’s an old guy. He’s got white hair. At that time he did a lot of the basketball stuff at Tennessee,” Hancock said. “He said, ‘I want to be the old guy that does basketball stuff for you.'”

Soon after, Thurston got bitten again by the coaching bug and wanted to return to the bench.

Thurston talked with Division III schools about coaching and athletic director positions, when he found out UNCW had an assistant’s slot.

One of the applicants interviewed for the job?

Al Brown.

Beyond the court: One of Thurston’s missions is telling players that there is a life outside of basketball.

“I think that’s one of the things I try to bring to it all the time, this life in basketball is going to end very shortly and to use college basketball to help prepare yourself for the rest of your life,” Thurston said. “And I think being around it for over 30 years, I can help them with that. A lot of the times, they don’t want to hear that, because they don’t want to talk about the unknown or what’s out there.”

But such advice, he feels, comes from experience.

“What I try to do is to relate everything to how you prepare for the rest of your life. Your career, your family career, your relationship career. Everything that that your do. I’m able to give them perspective that I wasn’t able to give maybe in my 30s,” Thurston said.

Players are noticing.

“He talks a lot,” senior guard Cherie Lea said. “He talks about leadership qualities, stuff we learn in basketball is going to help us out in life and when we go out there and get a job, to be competitive out there in the field.”

Alias: Thurston described himself having a “fatherly or grandfatherly age.”

His players don’t need to decide which one is more accurate

“The girls call him grandpa,” Hancock said. “That’s kind of a standing joke. (Senior forward) Tracy Morgan always likes to say, ‘Grandpa what’s up?’, ‘They let you out of the home for now?’, you know, he has a good sense of humor. He’s a lot older than everyone else involved with our program. The main thing he brings is experience. He’s done a lot of the things that we want to do. Anytime you have somebody that’s experienced as far as recruiting, scheduling, he’s pretty much done this stuff.”