John Saintignon
{{Short description|American sports coach and businessman (born 1965)}}
{{Multiple issues|{{BLP sources|date=April 2025}}
{{Peacock|date=June 2023}}}}
{{Infobox basketball biography
| name = John Saintignon
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1965|5|6}}
| birth_place = Tucson, Arizona
| position = Point guard and shooting guard
| college = *UC Santa Cruz
| cteam1 = Mar Vista High School
| cyears1 = 1992–1995
| cteam2 = Bonita Vista HS
| cyears2 = 1995–2001
| cteam3 = Canyon del Oro HS
| cyears3 = 2002–2003
| cteam4 = Desert Edge HS
| cyears4 = 2003–2004
| cteam5 = Oregon State (asst.)
| cyears5 = 2004–2007
| cteam6 = Caballeros de Culiacan
| cyears6 = 2007–2008
| cteam7 = Stanislaus State (asst.)
| cyears7 = 2008–2009
| cteam8 = Grant Union HS
| cyears8 = 2009–2010
| cteam9 = Sitra Club
| cyears9 = 2010–2011
| cteam10 = Fuerza Guinda
| cyears10 = 2012
| cteam11 = Culiacan Caballeros
| cyears11 = 2016
| cteam12 = Saitama Broncos
| cyears12 = 2019-2020
| cteam13 = Yamaguchi Patriots
| cyears13 = 2021-2023
| highlights = *The leading scorer in the NCAA in 1985–86, averaging 31.2 ppg
}}
John Saintignon (born 1965 in Tucson, Arizona) is the former CEO of Interscholastic Licensing Company (ILC).{{Cite web|url=http://www.ilcnetwork.com/|title=ilcnetwork.com|website=www.ilcnetwork.com}} Partnered with Reebok Team,{{Cite web|url=http://reebokteam.com/|title=reebokteam.com|website=reebokteam.com}} ILC provides schools, foundations, organizations, federations, and individuals with a platform for self-funding through a website.{{Cite web |last=Townsend |first=Peggy |date=2012-11-13 |title=Got game: UCSC student holds astonishing college basketball scoring record |url=https://news.ucsc.edu/2012/11/saintignon-john/ |access-date=2025-05-19 |website=News |language=en-US}}
Saintignon was formerly the head coach of Saitama in the BJ League in Japan. He also served as head coach of Sitra Club in the Kingdom of Bahrain and was the men's basketball director and assistant coach for the Oregon State Beavers at Oregon State University.
Early life
Saintignon played college basketball at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He holds the university's all-time scoring record.{{Cite web |title=All Time Career Leaders |url=https://goslugs.com/sports/2021/7/2/all-time-career-leaders.aspx |access-date=2025-05-23 |website=University of California, Santa Cruz |language=en}} In 1985–86, he led NCAA college basketball in scoring, averaging 31.2 points per game. He later transferred and graduated from the University of California, San Diego in 1990 with a degree in economics. His professional playing career began in Barcelona, Spain, where he was a starter. He subsequently played in Mexico, with teams in Durango, Zacatecas, and Monterrey. After his professional playing career, he attended law school, clerking at Jeffer, Mangles, Butler and Marmaro during his first year. He earned a Master of Arts degree from Liberty University in 2010 before beginning his coaching career.
Coaching career
{{Unreferenced section|date=May 2025}}
Saintignon's first coaching position was as a basketball coach at Mar Vista High School in Imperial Beach, California. He was the varsity head coach for three seasons from 1992 to 1995, during which the team won a championship, the first for the school since 1964.
From 1995 to 2001, he served as head coach at Bonita Vista High School in Chula Vista. The team won the school's first CIF title in basketball under his leadership in 1999, finishing that season with a 30–5 record. In 2002, he became head coach at Canyon del Oro High School, guiding the team to the state playoffs for three consecutive seasons. After three seasons with CDO, Saintignon moved to Phoenix, Arizona, to lead the program at the new Desert Edge High School. He was later asked to join the Pac-10 Conference at Oregon State University.
After two seasons as the director of basketball operations and assistant coach at Oregon State University, Saintignon became the head coach of the Culiacan Caballeros. He coached in Culiacan for one season, leading the first-year LNBP franchise to a 6th-place finish and a playoff berth in the 24-team league.
Saintignon returned to NCAA Division II as the lead assistant coach at Cal State Stanislaus University. He was part of the Warriors staff from 2008 to 2009.
In the 2009–10 season, Saintignon coached at Grant High School in Sacramento, with the team qualifying for the playoffs.
During the same season, Saintignon was hired as the head coach of the professional team Sitra Club, in the Kingdom of Bahrain. In two seasons with Sitra Club (2009–2011), the team reached the round of 6 in his first season, finishing 5th overall, one game shy of the Final Four by a single point. The following season, the team had a 6–3 record and a 4th-place finish before civil unrest related to the Arab Spring led to the season's cancellation.
Saintignon returned to Mexico to coach Fuerza Guinda in the CIBACOPA League in Nogales, leading the team to the playoffs in 2012.
He coached the Caballeros de Culiacan in the CIBACOPA league for a second time in 2016, taking the team to the playoffs.
For the 2019–2020 season, Saintignon coached the Saitama Broncos in Japan's BLeague, with the team on track for a playoff appearance before the season was cancelled due to COVID-19. In 2021-2022, Saintignon worked with a new franchise in the Yamaguchi prefecture of Japan, marking the first professional basketball team in that region.{{clarify|date=April 2025|reason=The first time in Yamaguchi?}}
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [http://www.osubeavers.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/091407aaa.html= Biography from Oregon State]{{dead link|date=April 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}
- [http://www.championshipproductions.com/cgi-bin/champ/auth/2353/John-Saintignon.html John Saintignon]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saintignon, John}}
Category:Oregon State University people
Category:American men's basketball coaches