LA JOLLA – Alaysia Styles said she was a troubled child when she first came to La Jolla Country Day basketball coach Terri Bamford.
“She’s really passionate,” she said. “She gave her heart to us… Some people just want to coach basketball.”
What would she say to “TBam” for her record-setting coaching career at La Jolla Country Day, as the basketball court was dedicated in her name on Friday, Dec. 12?
The lanky, former player, who starred at Cal and Syracuse, said: “Congratulations. Thank you for giving everything to us. She gave her heart. Thank you is not enough for all you have done.”
Asked what she was like when Bamford first coached her at an early age, Styles said: “I was emotionally expressive in an inappropriate way. She talked me down.”
Styles, present for the dedication ceremony with other former players, alumni, and friends of the coach, is in her first year as head coach of Torrey Pines girls varsity. She gave her mentor a big hug before tipoff.
But Bamford still has game. Behind 5’11” senior Mahlia Washington and 5’6″ point guard Safiyah Sugapong, Country Day ran away from Styles’ Falcons, 62-30, after Chrystina Sayers — niece of NFL Hall of Famer Gale Sayers — sang the national anthem.
Sayers played for Bamford in the class of 2005, alongside Torrey great Candice Wiggins, and like Wiggins, is a member of the Country Day Hall of Fame.
“We had a breakfast club,” Style said. “I came to school at 6 a.m., and the coach was there.”
Bamford has piled up 745 wins in her 27 years at LJCDS, the most for a girls’ basketball coach in the CIF San Diego Section. She broke Poway coach Jay Trousdale’s previous record of 726 last season, before the Torreys named the basketball court for her this year.
Among her accomplishments, Bamford has won 21 Coastal League championships, 15 CIF titles, nine regional titles, and four state championships. She has coached six Players of the Year, including Wiggins (a Stanford and WNBA star), Kelsey Plum (the NCAA scoring record-holder), and Te-Hina Paopao, who was in attendance, a South Carolina national champion as a point guard and recent high WNBA pick now playing for the Atlanta Dream.
Bamford was inducted into the Southern California Hall of Fame in 2023, after being named the National Coach of the Year in 2020 and the Cal-Hi Sports Coach of the Year in 2012.
Sabrina Callahan, a Class of 2014 all-leaguer, had this to say about her former coach: “She imprinted on me. TBam made me the woman I am today. She gave me mental toughness. TBam is those two words.”
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