Huge news out of Montlake today, as the school announced the signing of head basketball coach Lorenzo Romar to a 10-year contract extension that would take him through the end of the decade.

Should he stay through the entire length of the deal, Romar will have put in 18 years at Washington, while assuring the Huskies continued dominance over my grandfather's Ducks. Oregon, of course, can't even convince the ball boy to take its head coaching job, despite the Wall Street bank that funds their athletic programs and the unbelievable new building the team is about to move into. Think Larry Brown even turned that job down.

In his first eight seasons at Washington, Romar led the Huskies to a 171-91 record, five NCAA Tournament invitations and three NCAA Sweet Sixteen appearances. He ranks third all-time in victories among UW coaches. Romar owns a 264-179 record as a head coach after previous stints at Saint Louis University and Pepperdine University. His eight seasons at Washington is the longest active streak among Pac-10 coaches.

The man who he assumed that title from? Now former Oregon coach Ernie Kent.

Romar has churned out first round draft picks (four of them, with possibly another this season), while also leading the team to three Sweet 16 appearances, two Pac-10 Conference Tournament championships and the programs first outright regular season title in two decades.

Last month Romar lead the Huskies to a 26-10 overall record, the Pacific Life Pac-10 Tournament championship and another appearance in the NCAA Sweet 16. Quincy Pondexter and Isaiah Thomas both earned first-team all-Pac-10 honors, while Venoy Overton and Justin Holiday were named to the league's all-defensive team. Pondexer registered one of the best senior seasons in school history and was named Pac-10 Player of the Week a record five times.

On a less official note, Romar is a special guy. I've met a lot of basketball coaches on a lot of different levels. None have been quite like him. In my four years spending time around him in the athletic department, I tried to incorporate so much of his style into my own coaching style.

There are two things I really remember:
- The day I first met him I was a sophomore in high school. The Huskies were obviously recruited Martell Webster, who would later sign with the school before opting for the NBA draft out of high school. Not only was I there with Martell, but two other players considerably better than me. I was a nobody. Would never, ever play division one basketball and they all knew that. I was shooting by myself at a hoop off to the side of their practice when Romar walked over to me. He wasn't upset, nor did he speak to me like a coach. He looked me in the eye and said, "hey, I'm Lorenzo, nice to meet you."

I was floored. Sure it could be a recruiting attitude, but if it was, he's damn good at it. Never had a coach introduced himself like that to me before. It was always coach this or coach that. He's just different. I'd love to play for him, just like I liked working for him,

- The other reason is his coaching style. I can't even remember who it was, but at some point right after I started college, one of the players got into some trouble. There are rules in Romar's program and they are explicit. But he loves and supports his players at the same time. He sat down with the guy, outlined the exact plan for handling the situation (with no surprises, but exactly what the player expected), allowed the player to square himself away, and was done with it. No doghouse, no media situation, just simply square yourself away for whatever you did and move on. All programs should be like that.

Here's to 10 more years of his great leadership in the program.