TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) — Luke Loucks was born and raised in a family that loved sports. His dad, a high school football coach who began to introduce Luke and his siblings to a new way of not only playing sports but studying them as well. It would be those lessons that years later would serve the former Florida State point guard well.
After his time at FSU, Loucks bounced around Europe playing in Latvia, Cypress and Belgium before an opportunity in the NBA D-League (now the G-League) brought him back stateside. He’d eventually head back to Germany to finish out his playing career. After that, an internship with the Golden State Warriors began to pique his interest in the coaching world. From there, NBA assistant coach and team Nigeria head coach Mike Brown took Loucks under his wing. Giving way to a can't pass up the opportunity, he now embarks to Tokyo.
“Mike (Brown) pulls me in his office and says hey these guys have been hitting me up for a couple of months now to coach in the Olympics. And I said who are you talking to? And he said Nigeria," said Loucks. "He’s coached some of the best in the game and when he says these guys have a lot of talent you listen.
So once he committed he pulled me back in and asked if I would be a part of his staff as one of his assistant coaches. And of course, he could even finish the question, I said I’m in."
Nigeria takes on Australia in their first game of the Tokyo Olympics on July 25 at 4:20 a.m. Eastern time.
