Josh Jamieson

Be it ever so humble, sometimes there’s no place like home.

Medford’s Josh Jamieson made that clear when speaking Tuesday about his recent return to the University of Oregon’s men’s basketball staff as executive director and assistant coach for Dana Altman after spending the last two years as an assistant coach at Louisville.

Jamieson served as director of operations and later executive director at Oregon for 15 years before joining Kenny Payne’s staff in Kentucky in 2022 as an assistant coach.

Payne, who was an assistant coach at Oregon during Jamieson’s first two years as director of operations, went 12-52 in two seasons at Louisville before he was fired in March. That left Jamieson to re-evaluate his own future, and that led him back to Eugene earlier this summer with his wife, Amy, and nearly 1-year-old son, Brady.

“This has kind of always been a place that I’ve loved,” said Jamieson, who began his relationship with the Ducks as a graduate manager under Ernie Kent from 2000-03.

“We took the Louisville opportunity because of my relationship with Kenny Payne and we had talked about trying to help him if he got the opportunity (to be a head coach),” added Jamieson, 46.

“It didn’t work out there very well but, in the meantime, my relationship with coach Altman and everything else here just makes this such a great place. I love Oregon and am happy this opportunity came about.”

A big change in his last turn with the Ducks is that Jamieson will serve a dual role under Altman.

“I will have on-court coaching duties now, which is different from when I left and more in line with a traditional assistant coach,” he said. “To me, I think of it as a position that now allows me to assist in basically every area, which is certainly more appealing to me.”

“It puts me in a position to be able to, at least in my mind, help everyone in the organization try to be the best at what they’re best at,” added Jamieson. “My goal in the whole thing would be if everyone was able to breathe a little easier not having to worry about certain aspects.”

Jamieson’s prior responsibilities at Oregon included scheduling, coordinating the team’s travel, budgeting, academic support and equipment oversight. He also served as the director for Oregon’s basketball camps, as well as managing the program’s “Always Us” alumni team entry into the annual The Basketball Tournament.

While adept at those duties, anyone who has known Jamieson over the years knows how much pride he takes in the other training aspects in basketball, originally fostered as a freshman coach for Dennis Murphy at South Medford High School from 1996-2000.

“I absolutely loved coaching high school,” said Jamieson. “A couple of those South Medford years, especially when we were really good and the connections with Kyle and E.J. (Singler) and Michael (Harthun) and the list goes on and on, those were some of the most fun moments I’ve ever had in my life.”

“Truly, to me, there’s nothing like it,” he added of coaching basketball. “There’s not another place you can go and, in a sense, commit yourself to helping others in a framework where you’re going to see such a measurable result. I feel blessed to get to do it.”

Oregon won 20 games in each of Jamieson’s last 12 seasons on staff, including a school-record 33 games during the 2016-17 season when the Ducks reached the NCAA Final Four for the first time in 78 years.