Longtime Southern basketball coach Tom Bosley retires

Jul. 21—OAKLAND, Md. — Tom Bosley was in the gym at Southern High School a half-century ago, and his coach, Tom Kuhn, asked the ninth-grader what he wanted to do with the rest of his life.

"I want to be a high school basketball coach here," Bosley said.

"You better go to college," Kuhn responded.

Some 27 seasons, 424 wins, seven 20-win seasons, five area championships and four state tournament appearances later, Bosley established himself as one of the greatest coaches in this area's history.

On Thursday, Bosley called it quits on his illustrious career, retiring as boys basketball head coach.

"Tom Woods used to say to me, 'You'll know when it's time,'" Bosley said. "I haven't lost passion or enthusiasm. I just decided the last couple weeks that it was time. ... I've been so blessed to be the coach at Southern High School and guide our program."

Bosley, a 1971 Southern Garrett and 1976 Frostburg State graduate, finishes his career with a 424-222 record for a 65.6 winning percentage.

He won area championships in 1992, '99, '02, '12, '18 and '22, won 20 or more games in '92, '99, '00, '01, '02, '19 and '20 and won region titles in '82, '01, '19, '20 and '22.

He coached five Players of the Year: Brett Rice ('91-'92), Dennis Tressler ('03), Tyler Rodeheaver ('18) and Isaac Upole ('22).

Bosley received one final feather in his cap to a long career in March of 2022 when he, along with assistants Matt Redinger and Cory Bosley, was invited to coach the East team at the 45th McDonald's All-American Game in Chicago.

No coach is more synonymous with Southern boys basketball than Bosley, who played on the school's only other 20-win team for coach Kuhn as a senior in 1971.

In Bosley's two varsity seasons, the Rams were 37-8 and advanced to the state semifinals his senior year where they fell to Stephen Decatur, 55-53.

Bosley's success, he contends, is attributable to his assistant coaches and players who displayed loyalty and bought into his system.

From the perspective of those coaches around him — like Redinger, Southern's athletic director and an assistant to Bosley for some 20 years — Bosley's work ethic and attention to detail are what set him apart.

"It's a bittersweet day. It's the end of an era," Redinger said. "He's done so much for our high school ... He's done so much for our community more than a basketball coach.

"I don't think, after being a part of basketball at the high school level, there is someone in this area's history that did more for the game of basketball than he did.

"No one worked harder than him. You can't convince me that anyone in this area, maybe in the history of this area, worked harder than him."

If you were an area basketball junkie over Bosley's 27 seasons, you could count on seeing the Southern coach sitting in the front row scouting if the Rams didn't have a game.

That drive to succeed could be attributable to several influences.

Bosley "stole," as he put it, the most coaching knowledge from his brothers Dave and Jim Bosley, who produced championship-winning teams in softball and baseball, respectively, across more than 50 combined years at Southern.

Dave Bosley, with the help of four-time Area Player of the Year Jennifer Bosley, won softball state championships in 2001 and '02, and Jim Bosley won 386 baseball games and a record 10 area championships.

As an assistant football coach under the legendary Tom Woods, Tom Bosley absorbed lessons about how to organize a program, work hard and what it takes to make a winner.

During his playing days, Bosley learned much about the game of basketball from Garrett College assistant Don Douds.

Through all his intensity on the sideline and in practices, during which he held his players and assistants to a very high standard, he was also a player's coach.

"As Tom Woods would say: The remarkable thing about Tom Bosley is that he could run a practice, chew a kid out, make him mad, and after practice say, 'I have tickets to this college basketball game, do you want to go,'" Redinger recounted.

"And they'd want to get in the car and go with him."

Bosley has stepped away from coaching at Southern three other times, once to coach at Garrett College for three seasons where he went 51-35, but he insists this time is for good.

"I'm finished in terms of being a head coach," he said. "I'll help out here and there."

Away from the sideline, Bosley's open gym policy has benefitted not only Oakland but players from Northern Garrett County, Allegany County, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Bosley never turned away a player that wanted to work out, even from rival Northern.

"He helped kids from other schools get into colleges," Redinger said. "He's always ready to help. He chips in at fundraisers. If someone needs something, he's always there to pitch in.

"There is really no better coach, man, friend and mentor you'll find than Tom Bosley."

While Bosley has more than four times the win total as the next closest Southern boys basketball coach (Carl Schoonover, 103-83), the Rams have been blessed with a host of influential leaders.

Of coaches who've headed the program for more than a season, three others have winning percentages better than 60% in Kuhn, Oren Yoder and Don Stemple.

Southern will now begin the search for its next coach, though there is no replacing Bosley.

Bosley told Kuhn more than 50 years ago he wanted to be the Southern boys basketball coach. Whether Kuhn knew it or not, Bosley would spend the rest of his life fulfilling that proclamation.

"He dedicated his life to the game of basketball," Redinger said.

Alex Rychwalski is a sports reporter at the Cumberland Times-News. Follow him on Twitter @arychwal.