SANTA ANA, Calif. — There’s a saying that goes, behind every good team is a great coach. Considering Mater Dei High School has long been a great team, their coach must be somewhat of a legend. 

As his players would say, Gary McKnight is a basketball genius. 

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“After meeting him and getting to know him, sitting down and talking to him, he knows what he’s talking about," said point guard, Devin Askew. "He demands respect and we give him respect.”

And yet, McKnight wasn’t a basketball star himself.  

“I should have been the head baseball coach at Mater Dei because my love of sports is baseball," he explained. 

Even so, he’s built up one of the greatest high school basketball resumes of all time. McKnight started coaching youth basketball at 16 years old. More than a decade later, the Monarchs took a chance on him. 

“I was 29 years old and I was the youngest coach in Orange County," he said with a laugh. "Now I think I might be the oldest. We had a chance to come in and that first year was a little magical, we won the CIF Championship my first year.”

Since that first year, he's accumulated over 1,100 wins, 36 league titles, 23 CIF championships, and 11 state championships.  

Although when he started out, McKnight was more of a disciplinarian, he said he's softened over the years. 

“I would hope most of the time, I’m the guy that has a lot of heart, is soft, and people don’t read me right because if I was doing something wrong, all my players wouldn’t keep coming back," McKnight said. 

One thing that has yet to change over his 39 years at Mater Dei is his approach to the daily routine. 

“I get on the freeway at Mission Viejo and I enjoy doing it and as long as I enjoy doing it, I’m gonna do it," he said.“I get on the freeway at Mission Viejo and I enjoy doing it and as long as I enjoy doing it, I’m gonna do it," he said. "I really don’t know what else I would do.”

After all, he's the monarch of Mater Dei and he's still got big plans for the rest of the season.