Longtime Orange County boys basketball coach Mark Thornton died over the weekend. He was 74.
Thornton coached Capistrano Valley for 15 seasons and Dana Hills for seven seasons. His final season as a boys basketball head coach was 2002-03 at Dana Hills. Thornton had close to 400 wins, 311 of those coming at Capistrano Valley.
He coached Capo Valley to CIF-Southern Section boys basketball championship sin the 1988-89 and 1991-92 seasons.
Capistrano Valley coach Brian Mulligan, who replaced Thornton as the school’s boys basketball coach in 1995, said Thornton died from complications of Parkinson’s Disease.
Mulligan has referred to Capistrano Valley’s gym as “the gym that Thornton built.”
“Mark was a very good mentor to me,” Mulligan said.
Mater Dei coach Gary McKnight coached against Thornton teams many times, including when Capistrano Valley and Mater Dei were together in the South Coast League in the 1990s.
“Mark’s teams really ran his stuff well,” McKnight said. “He knew how to fit his system to the players he had.”
