Legendary Georgia player replaces legendary Georgia coach at Hebron

The Hebron Christian girls basketball program has replaced one of Georgia’s coaching legends with one of Georgia’s playing legends.

Jan Azar, who has won more high school basketball titles (17) than any girls basketball coach in Georgia, left Hebron Christian for Gainesville last month. The school responded by replacing her with Christi Thomas, who was an all-state player at Buford, an all-SEC player at Georgia and an 11-year veteran of professional basketball.

“It’s some big shoes to fill,” Thomas said. “I trust that God has put me here for a reason.”

The two actually had a conversation earlier in the season, with Azar offering words of encouragement to Thomas, who was an assistant coach at Seckinger High School. Neither side had any idea Thomas would be moving into Azar’s office a few months later.

“Jan was always very encouraging,” Thomas said. “When I was at Seckinger, we had a conversation, and Jan said how she was ‘a high school basketball coach’ and how we need more women coaching and leading our young girls.”

Azar took over at Hebron in 2019-20 and won four state championships, the latest in March. The 2026 Hebron team was regarded as one of the state’s top teams, regardless of classification. Thomas sees it as the program’s foundation.

“We all know what’s been done, now we’ll trying to build on that,” she said.

Thomas, a 6-foot-5 center, helped Buford reach the state championship game as a junior in 1999. A year later, Thomas shook off minor ACL surgery in November and averaged 22.4 points, 12.1 rebounds, 4.4 blocks, 2.6 steals and 2.4 assists and was an easy choice as Miss Georgia Basketball, all while carrying a 3.9 grade-point average.

She finished her high school career with 2,100 career points, although then-Buford coach Scott Bursmith said at the time, “I tell her she’s too unselfish.”

Thomas was a finalist for the Naismith National High School Player of the Year Award, losing to Diana Taurasi.

She signed with Georgia and was the SEC Freshman of the Year. She was a three-time All-SEC selection, averaged 12.8 points and 7.3 rebounds for her career, and was named to the U.S. Under-20 national team.

Former Georgia coach Andy Landers was ebullient about Thomas being hired.

“Hebron just hit a home run by hir­ing Christi Thomas as their new girls bas­ket­ball head coach,” he said. “She will be an out­stand­ing ambas­sador for Hebron Chris­tian Academy, a ter­rific coach and a won­der­ful role model for stu­dents and ath­letes.”

After college graduation, she was a first-round draft choice in 2004, the 12th overall pick, by the WNBA Los Angeles Sparks. She averaged 17.3 points as a rookie and went on to play with Minnesota and Chicago before finishing her career abroad with stints in Spain, Russia, Latvia, Israel, Italy and Turkey.

Since her playing career ended, she has been an assistant at Perimeter Christian, Cambridge, Northview, Flowery Branch, Jackson County and Seckinger. She was named community coach of the year at Northview in 2016 and helped Flowery Branch reach the semifinals in 2017 and 2018.

“My goal is to get the girls excited about basketball and foster a love for the game and have that continue for four years,” Thomas said.

Thomas, now 44, can remember growing up in Buford before the town became the dominant municipality it is today. There were only 80 students in her graduating class, she said. Thomas said she wants to have the same positive effect on young players that her coaches had on her career and create the same caring environment.