Weatherford College women’s coach Thomas McKinley to retire in 2026

Weatherford College women’s coach Thomas McKinley will retire Aug. 31, 2026, closing a 47-year run that made him the winningest NJCAA Division I basketball coach in the nation. He will stay on as Athletic Director Emeritus, keeping a formal tie to the program even as the bench changes hands.

Weatherford College’s athletics bio, which lists him as Bob McKinley, says he owned a 1,007-533 record through the 2023-24 season after arriving in Weatherford in 1977. The same bio says the Northern Texas Junior College Athletic Conference named him Coach of the Year 12 times and that he was inducted into the NJCAA Women’s Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame in 2015. Those numbers explain why this is not just a retirement notice. It is the end of a coaching archive that shaped Weatherford basketball for nearly half a century.

The timing matters because Weatherford is not only replacing a coach, it is trying to preserve a program identity built around McKinley’s name. He stepped down as athletic director as of May 1 and remained the women’s coach, giving the college a phased transition before the August retirement date. That kind of runway can help keep workouts, summer planning and player communication steady, but it also raises the stakes for who carries the program forward.

A local report identified Petree as the new women’s hoops coach, though Weatherford College’s announcement did not include successor details. That leaves the college with two immediate priorities: keep current players anchored and make sure incoming recruits hear a clear message about what Weatherford women’s basketball will look like without McKinley on the sideline.

McKinley’s career at Weatherford stretched across both programs. One report said he coached the men’s team for 18 years, the women’s team for 30 years and both teams in six seasons, a rare level of crossover even in junior college basketball. Weatherford College had already honored him with the Athletic Director Emeritus title at a Presidential Luncheon recognizing his decades of service, and this retirement extends that same respect into a formal goodbye. The challenge now is preserving the continuity he built while the program moves into its next era.