John Saintignon

Saintignon's college basketball playing career was as a player at University of California, Santa Cruz. He is the all-time leading scorer in university history, and led the entire United States NCAA college basketball with a scoring title, and led the nation in scoring in 1985–86, averaging 31.2 points per game. He later transferred and is a 1990 graduate of the University of California, San Diego with a degree in economics. He continued his education at Liberty University, where he earned a Master of Arts degree in 2010.

Saintignon's first coaching position was as a basketball coach at Mar Vista High School in Imperial Beach, California. He served as the varsity head coach for three seasons from 1992-95. He was able to win a championship, which had not been done since 1964.

His next job was at Bonita Vista High School in Chula Vista, as the head coach from 1995 to 2001. He became the school's first coach to win a CIF title in basketball in 1999, finishing that season 30–5. In 2002 he left to become the head coach with Canyon del Oro High School, getting to the state playoffs in three consecutive seasons. After three seasons with CDO, Saintignon moved to Phoenix, Arizona, to head up the new Desert Edge High School. He helped to build the school program before being asked to join Oregon State University.

After two seasons as the director of basketball at Oregon State University, Saintignon left to become a head coach of the Culiacan Caballeros. He remained in Culiacan, Sinaloa Mexico for one season, helping that first-year franchise play in the 24-team LNBP and finish in position 6 overall.

Saintignon moved on again to become an assistant at Cal State Stanislaus University. He was a member of the Warriors staff from 2008 to 2009.

In 2009–10, Saintignon again became a head coach, at Grant High School of Sacramento. He remained with the Pacers for one season.

The same season, Saintignon was hired as the head coach of an overseas professional organization at Sitra Club, in the Kingdom of Bahrain in the Middle East. In two seasons with Sitra Club, he helped the Sailors to the round of 6 in his first season, finishing one game out of four, in position 5 overall. The next season he led the team to a 6–3 record, which was a 4th-place finish before civil unrest in the country forced an early cancellation of the season.

He is currently head coach of Fuerza Guinda of the CIBACOPA League in Nogales, Mexico.

As a guest speaker in Italy, China, Croatia, Bahrain, Mexico and the Dominican Republic, Saintignon has earned a reputation as an authority on player development, and has produced several DVDs on improving athletes through individual training (Advanced Guard Workout), as well as attacking on offense with his secondary break philosophy (On the Attack: Mastering the Secondary Break). These are available at Championship Productions.

He also has been published many times:

• Published articles on offensive ideas for Five-Star Playbook, Wish Publishing
• Developed book, Pass Attack the Complete Offensive System, June 2006
• Published articles on offensive ideas for Five-Star Playbook, Wish Publishing, October 2003 and November 2005
• Published articles on offensive ideas for Five Star Basketball Coaches Playbook 2, October 2006
• DVD and article published for mensbasketballhoopscoop.com
• DVD produced, 20 Week Fundamental Skill Development, training for youth programs, April 2007
• Developed book, How to Get a College Scholarship, April 2006
• Included in book, How to Be Like Coach Wooden: Life's Lessons From Basketball’s Greatest Leader by Pat Williams, March 2006

Saintignon lives with his wife Angelica and their two sons, Vicente and Sebastian.

• Biography from Oregon State
• John Saintignon