Category: Jam Session

Man in motion: No slow down in vintage sports figure Gary Jenness

By Mike Whaley

Gary Jenness, far left, celebrates an NHIAA Division III state girls basketball title in 2012 with the team from White Mountains Regional High School. [photo courtesy of Gary Jenness]

Gary Jenness may be in his “golden years” but that doesn’t mean he’s slowing down. Not one little bit. After successfully coaching high school girls basketball at Groveton and White Mountain Regional from 1978 to 2016, Jenness, now in his mid 70s, has remained active at White Mountains at different times as an athletic director at the high school and currently at the middle school. He is also a state supervisor for basketball officials, while still officiating that sport and soccer. He took a recent fall that has put his basketball officiating on hold for the moment. In the summer, Jenness works at Santa’s Village in Jefferson.

“When I retired a couple of good friends of mine said you need to stay busy. Find something you like,” Jenness said. “As I told my wife (Marjorie) because she asks me why I come to school every day – ‘I like being busy. I’m not going to sit around. I’m going to stay busy. I’m going to do stuff I like, and when I don’t like it anymore, I’ll get done doing it.’ And so far that hasn’t happened.”

Gary Jenness coached the Groveton High School girls basketball team for 28 years, which included 14 trips to the Class S state championship game and 11 titles. [photo courtesy of Gary Jenness]

Jenness was very busy indeed during his coaching stints at Groveton and White Mountains. He has won more games (641) than any other high school girls basketball coach in New Hampshire and is second overall to the late Dan Parr (704), with his teams winning 12 state titles (11 at Groveton and one at White Mountains). He has also received many coaching honors and has been inducted into five halls of fame.

Coaching was always on his radar. A native of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, Jenness was inspired to coach by his dad — Harold “Pete” Jenness – an excellent youth coach, and his dad’s friends who coached, as well as his high school coach, Lenny Drew, and JV coach Scott Ingram.

As a senior at St. Johnsbury Academy, Jenness was a captain of the basketball team along with Paul Simpson. The two used to sit right behind the two coaches. “Not because we were trying to (brown nose); they had a wealth of knowledge with everything they did. They just knew so much about life and sports.” At the end of practice, Jenness and Simpson would sometimes play games of 2 on 2 against their coaches.

“When I graduated from high school I decided I wanted to be a coach,” Jenness said. “(Drew) was a history teacher, so I figured I’d be a history teacher.”

He enrolled up the road at Lyndon State College (now VTSU-Lyndon), but quickly found out he wasn’t going to be a history teacher. “My first assignment, I think it was called European Civilization, was to read 300 pages for the next class. I said that’s not for me. I’m not going to read 300 pages.”

Jenness bounced around after that. He got married to his first wife. He fell off a roof working for Rodd Roofing, so he was laid up and couldn’t go to school. He joined the National Guard and missed a year of school there.

In 2013, Gary Jenness, pictured with his wife, Marjorie, reached 600 wins as a high school girls basketball coach while at White Mountain Regional HS. He ended with 641 victories, the most by any girls hoop coach in the state. [photo courtesy of Gary Jenness]

He also remembers his first coaching position. It was 1967-68 and he coached a traveling middle school boys team. Jenness was working for Rodd at the time. “Mr. Rodd’s son was an eighth-grader,” he recalled. Rodd had two old Ford station wagons with wood paneling on the sides. “I’d drive one and he’d drive the other. We played 42 games that year and went to five tournaments. He would take us everywhere, and then take the kids out to eat afterwards.”

Jenness remembers working for a construction company in January of 1969. “I was cutting brush and stuff with snow up to my rear end,” he said. “I went home and told my wife at the time, ‘I’m going back to school to become a teacher and coach.’ Manual labor wasn’t for me. It had no future.”

Lyndon, by then, had a physical education major, so he went back to earn his degree and graduated in 1973, eight years after he graduated from high school.

His first job out of Lyndon was as a PE teacher and coach at Gilman (Vermont) Elementary School. It was quite a learning experience. “It’s a mill town. The kids were tough,” Jenness said. “They really didn’t think there was any need for school. I had some stuff that happened that if it happened now I’d be fired; actual physical fights with an eighth-grader. Stuff like that.”

Jenness was seriously thinking of getting out of teaching when a job opened up across the border in Groveton. It turns out he had an in. The superintendent of schools for Groveton was godfather to Lenny Drew’s first child. “When I mentioned I was from St. Johnsbury and played for Lenny, that helped,” Jenness said.

He was hired as a high school PE teacher and coached the junior boys basketball team. At the time the Groveton boys teams were very good and there was a feeling that coach Fred Bailey was leaving and they wanted someone to replace him when he left.

The varsity girls’ position opened up in 1978. “I took it,” Jenness said. “After a year of doing girls basketball, I said I’d never coach boys again.” He coached the Eagles until 2006.

“The girls were just eager to learn,” Jenness said. “They worked hard and didn’t think they knew everything.” 

Not that it was all peaches and cream. “I had a hard time and they had a hard time with me because I was a bit of a hard ass,” Jenness said. “After a few days of crying and everything, they figured out I really wasn’t that bad of a guy. That’s the way I was going to coach.”

Jenness had a good run at Groveton, but it took a while to get it to where he wanted it. One thing he did was encourage the girls to play during the summer, which became a collective mindset as the program improved and evolved. “We started getting halfway decent,” he said. “People started to have to worry about us.”

By the mid 1980s the Eagles were becoming a factor in Class S (now Division IV). They stayed there for the next 20 years under Jenness, and continue to excel to this day. The span from 1986-87 to 2006, Groveton went to 14 championship games and won 11 titles.

Gary Jenness coached high school girls varsity basketball in New Hampshire for 38 years – 28 years at Groveton and 10 more at White Mountains Regional. [photo courtesy of Gary Jenness]

The Eagles at two separate stretches won four and then five consecutive state titles. “Guys at other schools kept telling me that after this year, next year we’re going to kick your ass,” he said with a laugh. “We were very seldom rebuilding. The one thing I found was that Groveton was a sports town – especially a basketball town. All the kids would play down at the elementary school basketball courts. I always said ‘success breeds success.’ Those little girls who were down on the playground playing were pretending they were some of the players who were on the varsity. They just couldn’t wait to get up there and play for Groveton High School. I’m not sure they wanted to play for me all the time, but they definitely wanted to play for Groveton.”

Jenness tells the story about in 2000 when the boys and girls programs were really good (both in the midst of winning multiple titles in a row). Bill Bradley, the United States Senator from New Jersey and former college and NBA star, was running for president. His campaign had him come to Groveton. He met the two high school teams and shot some baskets with them. Jenness got a signed copy of one of Bradley’s books.

Groveton was very good for its division, but they also did well against bigger schools. One year when they won the Class S title, Littleton won in Class M and the Eagles split with them. Jenness recalls playing in a preseason jamboree in Goffstown with Class L and I schools and holding their own. “There’s a couple of years we wouldn’t have won the big classes, but we would have competed,” he said.

Another advantage in Groveton was that Jenness picked the coaches from elementary school on up. Tim Haskins was his long-time JV coach and now coaches the varsity. “I didn’t have to teach the basics to the kids,” Jenness said. “We could work on Xs and Os, which I like.”

It was a challenge when he made the move to White Mountains or “The Regional”, originally attracted to the position because there was the chance to  coach his granddaughters. He found the girls to be athletic, but not skilled like his Groveton girls. One thing he did early on was overlap varsity and JV practice for 15 to 30 minutes to work on basic skills – two-handed chest pass, bounce pass, jump stop, pivot. “Just little things that when I played against The Regional I never really paid attention to the fact that their skill levels weren’t very good,” Jenness said. “They were athletic. They just made too many little mistakes in terms of their skills.”

Gary Jenness, right, has been a supervisor of basketball officials for the past eight years. [photo courtesy of Gary Jenness]

Another challenge was that White Mountains has a strong softball program, and that made Jenness adapt as far as summer basketball. Girls were playing softball games all summer, and were less likely to show up in a hot gym to practice, so he compromised, scheduling more games.

The Spartans went on a good run from 2010 to 2013, appearing in the semis and two championship games. They won the 2012 D-III state title. On the eve of the 2011 semis vs. Campbell, his granddaughter, Emily, got mononucleosis and couldn’t play. She was a key cog in the middle of the 1-3-1 zone defense. Jenness had to put another player there. “It didn’t turn out very well,” he recalled. “We missed our first four layups and they made their first five shots.”

Jenness came back for another year and White Mountains won the championship. In 2013 they lost in the final to Bow, a game where Jenness said “we set girls basketball back 30 years. We scored eight points in the first six minutes.” But did not score much after that in an ugly 29-17 loss.

There were several girls who had been around the program since they were in eighth grade. They asked him to stay until they graduated. “Being a softy, I stayed until they graduated in 2016,” Jenness said. “I knew when they were done, I was done. … I felt I owed those girls for being part of the program.” 

When he stepped down, it ended a 38-year run as a varsity high school coach and a 40-plus year career overall. He also coached boys soccer for five years at Groveton, and served a stint as the school’s athletic director.

Although he isn’t coaching, he keeps on top of the sports scene as an official, a supervisor and an AD. “It gets more challenging,” Jenness said. “It’s a little different from what I was used to in Groveton and the first few years at White Mountains. There’s too much to make everybody feel good, whether they do anything. When they don’t feel good, it’s the coach’s fault. It’s the athletic program’s fault. Everybody gets a trophy. The thing that gets me after a game, I’ll hear parents say ‘you guys played so well. No, they didn’t play very well. Well we got beat by 35 points, so probably they didn’t play that well. That’s society now. You can’t hurt anybody’s feelings.”

Jenness said there are some very good coaches in the North Country with the same philosophy, noting Buddy Trask (Colebrook), Mark Collins (Groveton) and Trevor Howard (Littleton) among others. “One of the reasons these programs were always at the top of Class S and then Division IV was because the coaches held the players accountable and you had to work to play,” he said. “You had to work to get minutes. Now I think sometimes coaches, if a parent complains, the easiest way to stop the complaining is to let them play for a few minutes and that the parents are happy whether they deserve the minutes or not.”

Jenness tells his young coaches to be consistent and fair in what they do. “Then I can back you 100 percent,” he said. “But if you let somebody do something and somebody else can’t do it, it’s pretty hard for me to back you because you’re not consistent.”

In both Gilman and Groveton, Jenness recalls running into kids who couldn’t understand why they had to take some courses. “Like their fathers and grandfathers before them as soon as they graduated, they were going to the (paper) mill,” he said. Then the mills started wanting people that were more qualified to do certain things. “Kids started catching on. ‘We better go to school.’”

Jenness said mill towns can be funny. He recalls in 1995 Groveton was looking to change its athletic policy. A lot of coaches were doing their own thing as far as kids missing practice and missing games. Jenness said the night they made the presentation to the school board, the English department presented their curriculum to the board, and it took all of 20 minutes. It took the rest of that meeting and another meeting to get through the athletic policy.

“All the parents were there,” Jenness said. “If it was something that didn’t affect them, they were all for it. But if it was something about going on vacation and (kids) going to have to sit games, then they were up in arms.”

There were times back in the day, noted Jenness, when there was money won and lost at the mills on high school games between Colebrook and Stratford (closed in 2012), Colebrook and Groveton, and Stratford and Groveton. “Those millworkers would bet pretty heavily on those games,” he said.

Back in the 1990s, Jenness can remember when Colebrook and Groveton were playing, if the game started at 5:30 p.m., the doors opened at 4:30 because the place would be packed. He can also recall going to Stratford for a boy/girl doubleheader. “I was always pissed because the girls played first,” he said. “When we came out after we played, there was no place to sit.”

At one point, Jenness worked with Trask in Colebrook to do home/away games on Friday and Saturday nights. Each year they would switch off who was the home team on those nights. “We’d fill the stage with people because that’s how many people came to watch those games,” he said. “The teams were very good. The towns were very athletic-minded. Now very seldom do you see a gym full. Groveton plays Littleton, the gym will be full, but not like it was in the old days.”

Jenness can remember doing a lot of scouting, as did Trask and Collins. With the advent of streaming services like Northeast Sports Network (NSN), coaches can watch games online and spend less time on the road scouting.

Jenness remembers in 1986-87, he and Haskins, his JV coach, saw every Class S girls team. “We’d have early practice, I’d say to him ‘want to go to Nute tonight?’” Jenness said. “He wasn’t married. It was between marriages for me. Those days we’d just take off and we’d get out somewhere. They’d say ‘what the hell are you doing here?’ I’m never going to lose a game because I don’t know what somebody is going to do.”

That started, Jenness said, when he called a coach at Lin-Wood for a scouting report. “Her words were: ‘they’re nice kids. They were so nice.’ That’s nice, but that’s not going to help me win a basketball game.”

Jenness said Trask scouted right up until he retired two years ago. “Mark Collins still scouts some. You never see coaches or assistant coaches from other schools. Very seldom do you see them watching a game and scouting.”

As a basketball supervisor, Jenness is concerned with the decline of young officials entering the profession. The numbers he has for N.H. is that 67 percent of officials are over age 60. Of that remaining 33 percent, 75 percent of that number is over age 55. “There are so few young officials that stay at it long enough to get good enough to get tournament games,” he said. And if they do stay, they end up getting recruited to do college games where the money is better. “That’s great for them, but it just waters down what we have to offer.”

Jenness is also on the New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association (NHIAA) Awards Committee with Executive Director Jeff Collins and some other veteran ex-coaches and administrators like Bill Dod, Bob Nelson and Peter Cofran. “We’ll get talking about something that happened back in the 1970s and 1980s, and Jeff will sit there and say ‘did that really happen?’” Jenness said. “Peter’s the chairperson and, of course, he ran all those tournaments at Plymouth for all those years. It’s funny we’ll sit there and sometimes we’ll get off on a tangent talking about whether somebody should be in the hall of fame. We’ll go away from that person and something related to that person or somebody that person knew, and (Jeff) won’t stop us and say we need to get back on track here. Most everybody on the awards committee has 40 years of service to the athletes in New Hampshire and the NHIAA.”

An always-in-motion Gary Jenness stays the course in a rapidly changing athletic environment. The landscape is light years removed from what he grew up with in the 1960s and became accustomed to as a coach in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, and even into the new millennium. No matter, Jenness adapts here and there and largely remains who he’s always been, an older and surely wiser version of his fair and consistent self.

Pinkos steers SNHU in the right direction

By Mike Whaley

If you were to pick someone who epitomizes basketball in New Hampshire at its finest, you’d be hard pressed to find a better example than Karen Pinkos. She ticks all the boxes. After all, she grew up in Allenstown, went to high school and played three sports at Pembroke Academy, and then walked on as a basketball player at the University of New Hampshire, becoming a two-time captain and an all-conference performer.

A long-time college hoop coach with 30-plus years of experience, Pinkos is beginning her 18th season as the head women’s coach at Southern New Hampshire University. There she has turned SNHU into a winning program having inherited a team that had accumulated 14 consecutive losing seasons when she arrived.

Pinkos worked through three more losing seasons before turning things slowly around. The Penwomen have had five consecutive winning seasons, including the last two in which they went 21-7 and 22-8 to qualify for the NCAA Division II Tournament – the program’s first appearances since 1990.

“I love it here,” said Pinkos, who graduated from Pembroke in 1984 and UNH in 1988. “It’s been a good fit. My family is relatively close to here. It’s home for me. Growing up 10 to 15 minutes away, it’s a cool story. I hope we can continue to be competitive.”

Indeed, when recalling her basketball roots in the state, Pinkos harkens back to Allenstown in the late 1970s and early 1980s. A rock for her was legendary Pembroke hoop coach Rose Galligan. “It was awesome. She was tough,” Pinkos said. “She would do anything for me. She gave me so much opportunity as a kid growing up.”

When Pinkos’ parents divorced, Galligan stepped in to help get the young basketball player rides or help fundraise money to go to camps. “She was just awesome,” Pinkos said. “She’s still in my life. She comes to our games, she comes to our practices.”

Pinkos recalls as a young player that Galligan just wanted her to get better. “I spent time in the gym with her – after practice, before practice,” Pinkos said. “Sundays, she’d open the gym for us – me and my teammates. She was strict, but to me very motivating. She gave me structure that I probably needed.”

Pinkos also played softball and field hockey. UNH came on her radar through their basketball camp that she attended. “I just fell in love with the place,” she said. “I loved the coaches. I loved the players. I wanted to go there, but it was completely out of reach. I was not a Division I athlete or player.”

Pinkos had some smaller schools on her radar, but then decided she didn’t care. “If I can make it as a walk-on, I’ll go there and that’s how it happened,” she said, enrolling at UNH and walking on to the basketball team. She made the team, but didn’t play much – maybe a total of six minutes in six games. It was one of those deals where she’d get a minute here, 10 seconds there. The coach might ask someone to go in at the end of the game for the star player. “Yeah, I’ll go in,” Pinkos recalled saying.

She worked her butt off after that first year. A player got injured during her sophomore year, so she was able to slide into the starting lineup. She never left. She went on to be a two-time captain and made the all-conference first team as a senior.

After college, Pinkos wasn’t sure what she was going to do. She had a summer job in Newmarket directing a summer recreation program. Part of her still wanted to play. She had some friends that were playing overseas, so it was in the back of her mind. By this time it’s August and her options are less than they were. Then one of her UNH assistant coaches approached her and said she was changing careers to be a teacher. Was Pinkos interested in the position?

She was.

Pinkos talked to coach Kathy Sanborn and took the position. “My friends were my teammates,” she remembered. “So for me to be a young assistant coach on staff with people I played with was a little odd.” It was not an issue for Pinkos. She figured since she’d been a two-time captain, she was a leader anyway. She was at UNH for three more seasons as an assistant.

Then she left to play professionally in Germany, something she did for a half a season. She came back and pieced together different jobs to make ends meet – intramural official, substitute teacher. Then she got an assistant job at Boston College, and she was in the coaching game for good. Next she was at Providence College, and then in 1996 she accepted a job as an assistant at Northeastern University, where she stayed for nine years leading up to the SNHU post.

In between she interviewed for quite a few head coaching jobs. She got the New Haven job, but turned it down. “It wasn’t the right fit at the time for me,” Pinkos said. She also applied for the UNH job, but didn’t get it. “It was good for me because I probably wasn’t ready.”

She was also up for jobs at Saint Anselm College and St. Michael’s College, and didn’t get either. “When this job (SNHU) opened up, it felt like it was home because I had grown up in New Hampshire,” Pinkos said.

She met with then athletic director Chip Polak. She had a lot of people call on her behalf. “It became a perfect fit,” she said. “Who knew 18 years later I’d still be here.”

There was certainly work to be done. Not only had there been 14 straight losing seasons, but in the previous 13 the Penmen had never won more than eight games. The culture was not great. “The biggest thing looking back was trying to create a culture,” Pinkos said. “I had to do a lot of convincing to these kids that this is a new way of doing things and that basketball needed to be a priority and not your social life. Even in my first year there were everyday victories.

One of those victories was a nine-win season in 2005-06, four more than the previous season and the most by a SNHU team since the 1991-92 season. “We beat some big teams that first year,” she said. “We did some nice things. The kids kind of got on board. Two seasons later they won double figure games (13) and in 2008-09 they went 18-11, the first winning season in 17 years.

“We got better and better,” Pinkos said. “We did have a couple down years in the middle for whatever reasons. It’s a tough league. The last seven, eight years we’ve been able to have a pretty good program.” SNHU has had six winning seasons in the last seven years. There was no season in 2020-21 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The kids have bought in,” Pinkos said. “It’s not a lot easier, but people will listen now when you call. Because kids want to go to a winning program and it’s a great university.”

One of the big turning points that has propelled the Penmen into a consistent winning program was recruiting Kylie Lorenzen in 2015. She went on to become the program’s leading scorer (1,798 points) and rebounder (932), leading SNHU to three winning seasons in four years.

Pinkos has taken a lot away from the different coaches she has worked with. Bob Foley at Providence gave her insight into Xs and Os, but mostly she learned about recruiting and competitiveness. “Recruiting has a lot to do with it,” she said. “Each year you get better players. The list is so long of really talented players we got here in the program.”

Which is why it has been important to Pinkos to hammer home from day one of building that culture of doing the right thing, being good teammates and good people, and working hard. “And committing to the program and being really selfless,” she said. “Over time that culture is not something I have to teach. It’s now taught by the older players. That was my goal.”

That culture has gotten SNHU to where it is now. The current team is 4-2 and 4-1 in the competitive Northeast-10 Conference, coming off back-to-back NCAA tournament appearances.

“The last two years have been unbelievable,” Pinkos said. “These kids are hungry to win.” The two years are particularly striking as they came off the covid year in which there was no season. It was extra tough for SNHU as they were one of the few schools that shut down. Pinkos couldn’t even work out with her players. In fact, she said she went nearly a year and a half without seeing them in person. “We tried to maintain communication with a text, email, a zoom call,” she said. “I went for a walk with a couple kids – just being outdoors.”

The Penmen came back with a vengeance with 2021-22. They went 21-7 to make the program’s first NCAA tournament appearance in over 30 years. “I think it was just missing it, putting some pieces together recruiting,” Pinkos said. “We had Meg Knollmeyer as a transfer. We just had some kids who were hungry.”

When the team returned, Pinkos said the Penmen “learned to appreciate each other and the opportunities that each one of us had and not to take it for granted. It just clicked.”

There were still challenges. Covid had not gone away, and still hasn’t. There were practices with just four players due to covid. They had to reschedule five games because of covid. SNHU played seven games in a 14-day span. “Which I think took a toll on our kids,” Pinkos said. “Two kids ended up getting injured in the same game – tore their ACLs. We still managed to finish the season. It was heartbreaking for our players, to this day for Meg Knollmeyer and Gyanna Russell. It was heartbreaking for them to end their careers on torn ACLs after a year of covid. Those are moments you hate as a coach. But it was also the most rewarding year because those two helped put Southern New Hampshire on the map.”

SNHU won the NE-10 regular-season championship and hosted the NCAA Division II East Region Championship, losing to Daemen College, 70-59.

“We did it again. We pushed through last year,” Pinkos said. “We had some pretty good wins. We were able to just take care of business.” SNHU went 22-8 overall, making the NCAA East region Championship at Assumption University in Worcester, Mass. They won the program’s first-ever NCAA tourney game with a 65-44 victory over St. Thomas Aquinas before falling in the semis to Jefferson University, 62-49.

“We’ve got a big, talented team this year,” Pinkos said. “We had a tough loss the other day ( to Post, 57-51). Those things happen. I hope we can get back there. But nothing in life is guaranteed.” SNHU lost its second game to nationally-ranked Bentley on Wednesday, 59-52.

The Post loss was humbling, according to Pinkos. “You’ve got to work for everything. Nothing is easy,” she said. “We didn’t shoot well. We didn’t play our best. We hope to get back there. That’s our goal.”

SNHU should have a good shot of doing just that with some very good veteran players returning to the roster, led by Adrianna Timberlake and Jess Knight, both mainstays on the last two NCAA tournament teams.

“I feel like if we do the things we’re supposed to do, winning will take care of itself,” Pinkos added. It’s proven, so far, to be a successful recipe for SNHU.

Great Bay CC hoop climbs into national spotlight

By Mike Whaley

Alex Burt has proven beyond doubt that you can get there from here. When Burt took over the Great Bay Community College men’s basketball program in December of 2018, he inherited a team that had never won more than five games and was in the midst of a second canceled season in which he used to recruit players for the 2019-20 season.

Things got better, but it took some time and some patience.

The Herons went 9-13 in 2019-20, setting a program-record for most wins. After the Covid-19 pandemic forced GBCC to miss its third season in four years in 2020-21, the team came back the following year to go 13-12, the first winning season, and win the program’s first playoff game in the Yankee Small College Conference (YSCC).

After a breakout 2022-23 season, Dover’s Kinglsley Breen will play a key role this year as the GBCC hoop team looks to return to the USCAA Division II National Tournament. [Mike Whaley photo]

The Herons took a huge step forward last year as the addition of Dover’s Kingsley Breen and former UMaine-Machias standout Theo Wolfe sparked a 22-9 record, a trip to the conference championship and an at-large berth in the United States Collegiate Athletic Association (USCAA) Division II National Tournament in Richmond, Virginia. GBCC came in as the 10th and final seed, upsetting the number seven and two seeds en route to the USCAA final four. Their Cinderella run ended with a 69-61 loss to Miami-Hamilton. Burt was named USCAA D-II Coach of the Year.

Great Bay is officially on the basketball map now, made even more apparent with its recent ranking as the number three D-II team in the nation in the USCAA preseason poll. The USCAA is a national college organization, like the NCAA, that caters to both two-year and four-year schools. While Great Bay is a two-year school, athletes there do have the option of playing a sport for four years in the USCAA for GB.

“Last year we were the sleeper school,” said Burt, a Dover-native who starred at Dover High School and Plymouth State University. “People kind of knew what we were up to, but no one gave it respect. We always felt we had to do more just to get seen by somebody throughout the league. This year it’s going to be a totally new experience for me, a totally new experience for all of our guys. We’ve kind of got a target on us.”

Breen, who earned All-American honors, feels the Herons still have a point to make. “We’re trying to still stay the underdog,” he said. “Historically we haven’t been up there with everybody. We still have to prove ‘OK, we’re here. This is not just a fluke.’”

GBCC’s Theo Wolfe was a key part of last season, averaging a double double. [Mike Whaley photo]

The Herons certainly have what it takes to make another run, led by three returning starters: Breen, Wolfe and senior Bryce Gibson from Auburn, Maine. The trio are the team’s top returning scorers: Breen (16.7 ppg, 5.0 rpg), Gibson (16.2 ppg, 42.5 3-point pct.) and Wolfe (15.4 ppg, 12.2 rpg).

The big void to fill will be that of two-year standout and defensive stopper Alex Taveras of Portsmouth, who is now a preferred walk-on at the University of New Hampshire. Taveras led the YSCC in 3-point shooting (45.9 pct.), while averaging 12.8 ppg and 5.5 rpg.

GBCC has a good crop of incoming players, while returning role players like former Kingswood Regional HS star Ethan Arnold and Dover’s Cam O’Brien could expand their parts in support of the starters. 

GETTING THERE

Before Burt took the job, there had been three seasons with three different coaches resulting in the following: 4-19, 5-18, no season. Nothing to write home about.

In fact the Herons had already canceled a second straight season when Burt took the job in 2018, which eventually turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

It wasn’t, however, pretty right out of the gate. “That year the idea was just to fill a roster,” Burt said. “The early going was difficult.” In talking to players and parents he had to, of course, tell them there was no team at the moment. “But I’m here to create one,” he said. “The selling point wasn’t really there.”

But Burt persevered and it wasn’t long before he was able to get a half dozen players on board, including N.H. Division IV Player of the Year, Hunter Bullock from Epping, Londonderry’s Ethan May, a N.H. Division I All-State player, and another all-state player from Epping in Dylan Desrosier, who had been on a previous GB team, and who hung around for four years and was part of last year’s final four squad. Another recruit was Jordan Williams, an all-state player from Maryland. The biggest pick-up turned out to be George Mortimer, a former Traip Academy star, an older player who had played a year at the University of Southern Maine in 2011-12 and went on to be GBCC’s leading scorer.

“Once I got some kids in the door, I started getting all-state kids in the door. It snowballed from there,” Burt said. “I was able to put together a roster that would at least somewhat compete in the YSCC.”

The Herons turned a massive question mark into success, going 9-13.

But then Covid hit, and the following season was canceled, the third time in four years that the Herons did not have a season. 

GBCC guard Bryce Gibson had a breakout season last year, averaging 16.2 ppg and finishing second in the YSCC in 3-point shooting. [Mike Whaley photo]

But GBCC made the best of it, as difficult as it was. The big positive for Burt was that he was able to double down on recruiting. If not for that Covid year, it’s unlikely that the Herons would have been able to get Gibson and Tavares.

Tavares was a big high school star in Portsmouth, scoring over 1,000 points and playing on several state championship teams. He went to Plymouth State, but never played a game. Several weeks into his fall semester he broke his leg. He missed the entire 2019-20 season, which led him to consider new options.

Burt had heavily recruited Tavares in high school, so he was on his radar. When Tavares decided to make a change, he contacted Burt.

Gibson, meanwhile, had played a year at UMaine-Augusta. They had a coaching change and he decided he wanted some change himself. He contacted Burt about the GBCC program. “I saw that it was a newer school, a newer program,” Gibson said. “I reached out.”

“That whole year allowed me to put some stronger pieces together going into 21-22,” Burt said. 

The Herons in turn took another step forward. They went 13-12 to achieve the program’s first winning season, which also included capturing a playoff win for the first time.

That brings us to last year. GBCC continued to forge forward. Burt added two more key pieces in Wolfe and Breen. Wolfe had played one year at UMaine-Augusta, but Covid and financial woes led to the school suspending its athletic programs in July of 2020. Wolfe eventually found his way to Great Bay.

Breen was a Dover HS star, who left Dover after his junior season for Malden Catholic, a private high school in Massachusetts. He reclassified and spent two years there, “trying to get a better education and better focus.”

Breen had some college plans, but they didn’t work out. “I didn’t have the grades I wanted to, if I’m being honest,” he said.

Breen and Burt had a connection, which made Burt laugh a little. It was 2016, and Burt was preparing for his first of two years playing professionally in Europe. He was working out at the Dover Rec. Breen was a seventh-grader. “I remember that kid would be trying to shoot at the hoop I was working out on and totally getting in my way,” Burt said. 

So when Breen finished up at Malden Catholic and was trying to figure out what to do next, he already had this unusual dynamic with Burt dating back to the Dover Rec when Burt was a young adult and Breen was a child.

Breen visited the campus and liked what he saw. “It was really family-oriented – a good vibe,” he said. “It was a second chance I felt like.” It also didn’t hurt that the team had several Dover players – O’Brien and Jackson Rutland.

With the addition of Breen and Wolfe, Burt saw the potential. “Those two players pushed us over the top,” Burt said. “We had a solid group with that 13-12 year and Alex being our leading scorer. We had some other decent pieces to keep us competitive. It pushed us into a whole other category.”

FINAL FOUR OR BUST

It didn’t immediately take off. The Herons went 5-4 in November, including three straight conference losses, but after that they started to come together. By mid January, Burt said they were all on the same page. “Everybody woke up on the right side of the bed one day,” he said. “We just took off. Something totally clicked.”

At one stretch, they won seven of eight games, including signature victories over Central Maine CC and Southern Maine CC, the defending national champion. They ended the regular season with an 18-7 record, and a so-so 7-7 YSCC record. In the first round of the conference tournament, they played Maine-Augusta at CMCC and pulled out an 86-78 win. They had four players in double figures, led by Tavares with 22 points; Wolfe had 18 and 13 rebounds, while Breen (12) and Gibson (10) also chipped in.

They sent them to the conference semis against Paul Smith College, upset winners over NHTI. They rolled, 96-67, led by Wolfe’s 20 points, 16 apiece from Breen and Tavares, and 12 from Gibson.

In the final, they met SMCC, but the run ended there, 59-47. Only Wolfe (14 points) reached double figures as the Herons shot just 31 percent from the field. “We did not play good offense in that game,” Gibson said. “I don’t think we expected the physical part of the game when we got to that one.”

“It was a defensive battle,” Burt said. “We held them in the 50s. They held us to 47 and we averaged in the 80s. It was my first conference final and all my guys. The gym was rocking. It was pretty fun.”

Losing, however, was tough. SMCC as the conference winner earned the automatic bid to the USCAA Division II national tournament. Great Bay’s season seemed to be over.

“We’re in the locker room’ we’ve got guys crying thinking their season is over,” Burt said. “We’ve got guys who are graduating unsure if their competitive careers are over.”

The thing is, Burt knew in the back of his mind that there was a chance they could make the national tournament field of 10. It is not a reach for the YSCC to get three or even four teams, so why not Great Bay?

Burt knew on the bus ride back to New Hampshire from CMCC that the selection show would be going on. “Part of me did n’t even want them to pull out their phones,” he said. “We weren’t guaranteed a frickin’ thing. We were a dark horse, a sleeper school.”

Burt was thinking to himself that they’re on their way home and he’d about to have his players pull out their phones and maybe be upset again. Then he said, “Let’s have a little faith here.”

So they pull out their phones, and the teams are picked – 1-2-3, right up to nine, and no Great Bay. “I’m going ‘come on please, this would be horrible,’” said Burt. “Then they shouted us out with an at-large bid. They mentioned our record, some of the guys, and our seed, and said ‘we’ll see you guys in Virginia.’”

The bus blew up. “”Everyone was just absolutely fired up,” Burt said. “Now it wasn’t over. All year long we were the school that was winning some games, but not being talked about. And finally we’re being talked about.”

The players’ responses were predictable. “It was nerve-wracking,” Breen said. “We were like ‘oh man.’ Obviously they’re going through the numbers and it’s no way, no way. It’s the last one. We finally got in.”

“We’re on our phones just watching the teams get picked,” recalled Gibson. “We’re sitting there for the 10th pick with our fingers crossed, hoping we get picked. Then it happened. It was crazy.”

Ethan Arnold was sleeping in the bus when GBCC got picked. “I got woken up by the guys on the bus,” he said. “That was a pleasant wake-up surprise.”

As the 10th and final seed in the tournament, there wasn’t a lot of expectation. However, the Herons felt good about themselves. SMCC and NHTI were also in the tournament, and they knew they could play with those teams.

“As a whole group, we believed that’s where we’re supposed to be,” coach Burt said. “It wasn’t the luck of the draw. We’re there.”

The 2022-23 Great Bay CC squad advanced to the USCAA Division II Final Four. This year they have been picked third in the preseason poll. [Courtesy photo]

The Herons made a statement. In their first game vs. seventh-seeded Villa Maria, they fell behind four points at the half. But sparked by Breen, they dominated the second half to win 79-67. Breen led the way with 27 points and eight rebounds, while Gibson added 22 points, five rebounds and five assists. Wolfe had 16 points and 13 boards, while Tavares added five points and 10 rebounds.

In the second round vs. No. 2 Penn State Mont Alto, GBCC jumped out to a 45-30 lead at the break en route to a convincing 75-58 win. Breen again led the way with 20 points and five boards. Tavares (12 points, 16 rebs.) and Wolfe (12 pts., 11 rebs) had solid supporting games, while Desrosier and Gibson combined for 17 points.

Now they were off to the final four against Miami Hamilton. The run ended. Great Bay trailed by six at the half, 32-26, and twice tied the game in the second half, but could not pull ahead. Their season ended with a 69-61 loss.

Breen had another big game with 22 points, while Gibson added 11 and Wolfe had a double-double with 10 points and 10 boards. Breen was named to the all-tournament team. “It was a turning point for me personally,” Breen said. “I just saw a chance to play against some great competition and really try to dial in. I thought it was great.”

STAYING ON TOP

Once an afterthought in the YSCC, Great Bay will begin this season as a team to beat. It’s a new look. “We’ve always felt like we’ve had to do more to get seen by somebody throughout the league,” said Burt. “This year is going to be a totally new experience for me, a totally new experience for all our guys. We’re going into this year, we’ve kind of got a target on us.”

Nine players return and seven new players join the roster. Burt is excited about the possibilities. “We’ve got a lot in the preseason to do,” he said. “We have things to adjust, things to fix to get us stronger and sharper. We’re making those progressions that we can.”

Breen, Gibson and Wolfe will be at the forefront of what the Herons do. Breen knows this season will help open the door for his final two college years. “I definitely feel like the Division II, Division I conversation isn’t out the door with the talks I’ve been able to have,” he said. 

The Great Bay CC men’s hoop team set a school record by winning 22 games last year and advancing to the USCAA D-II Final Four. [Mike Whaley photo]

Breen talked about some of his teammates, noting that Wolfe “definitely has that old-school feel. The haircut helps,” he added with a laugh, referring to Wolfe’s afro that is reminiscent of NBA Hall of Famer Wes Unseld. “He’s a great guy to play with. You get him the ball in the offense we play and he knows how to make plays. He draws a huge amount of attention on offense and defense.”

As for Gibson, Breen said, “him a the two (guard) that’s a 1-2 punch in the backcourt. He’s just a pure scorer.” Gibson has also hit the weight room to add some muscle to his frame

Arnold is another player who hopes to step up his role, filling the shoes, as he sees it, of Tavares. “I’m definitely going to play more of a leadership role,” Arnold said. “I’ll be one of the key defenders with Alex Tavares going to UNH. He’d guard the best player on the other team. I’m looking forward to getting into that role. I’m looking to be more of a lethal scorer.”

The seven new players include four freshmen: Joe Gutwein (ConVal), Stephen Gitau (Dover), Jordan Berko (Farmington) and Jared Biaya (Portland, Maine). Gutwein (6-1) and Gitau (6-2) are guards, while Berko is a 6-foot-6 forward and Biaya is 6-8. The rest of the newbies include 6-4 Mpore Semuhoza (a CMCC transfer), 6-4 Sean Murphy of Exeter (back after missing last year) and 5-5 guard Antoine Bailey from New Orleans. “I’m super excited about our new group,” Burt said.

Gutwein was an all-state guard at ConVal, and he is hoping he can help the team out anyway possible. “The guys are great,” he said. “Our chemistry is strong . This is a group that wants to be in the gym everyday. Kingsley, Theo, and Bryce, that’s our big three right there. They’re so dominant defensively and offensively. And that goes for everyone on our team as well. We are loaded with talent.”

Breen likes what he’s seen with Gutwein in the early going. “You can tell he can really play the game,” Breen said. “He’s smart, he fills the lanes. He’s just always in the right spot.” Gutwein has some personal physical adversity he must deal with every day – he was born profoundly deaf in both ears, accessing sound with a cochlear implant. “Honestly, in a noisy gym, it is difficult to hear,” he said. “My teammates and coaches use hand signals to communicate plays. I’m also super visual and always checking.”

The Herons open the season Saturday at home with a non-conference game against Quinsigamond Community College.

“Ultimately I took the job to build something special and create something special for these guys to take with them to whatever their chapter may be,” Burt said. “Now we’ve got to stay there.”

Jen Robinson Watson: Former Coe-Brown star finds masters niche in England

By Mike Whaley

No one is as astonished as Jen Robinson Watson to be playing competitive basketball at age 45. But here she is.

Once a New Hampshire schoolgirl star at Coe-Brown Northwood Academy from 1992 to 1996, the 6-foot-3 Deerfield native played college ball at New Hampshire College (now Southern New Hampshire University) before embarking on a career and a life that has kept basketball close at hand.

She currently lives in northern England in Yorkshire with her husband, James, and two children, Elizabeth and Harry. James and her run the family canal boat tourism business, Skipton Boat Trips.

Watson recently tried out for and made Great Britain’s top-flight masters women’s basketball team – the O40’s GB Maxiballers. Last month she was chosen as team captain as the team prepares for the world championships next month in Mar Del Plata, Argentina.

“Trust me, no one is more surprised than I am,” Watson said during a recent phone interview. “I’m just trying to stretch it out as long as I can. I’m hoping I’ve got another five years. I don’t envision playing on the (over) 50 team, but we’ll see how it goes. I feel really grateful for everything I have so far. It’s alright if it finishes. I feel like I’ve had a great career.”

Which is true.

Watson grew up in Deerfield, a small N.H. town that is a 30- to 40-minute drive to many destinations in the southern half of the state. Presented with multiple choices for high school at Concord HS, Manchester Central, Manchester Memorial, Oyster River and Coe-Brown, Watson dug her heels in against Coe-Brown, where her three older sisters had gone. “I didn’t particularly want to go there,” she said. “It was kind of my last choice because it was probably my best choice for me as a teenager. I rebelled against it and definitely wanted to go to Oyster River.”

Then Coe-Brown girls hoop coach Tom Hall started planting the seed of coming to and playing at the Northwood school. “I thought he was a great coach and we got along well,” Watson said. “I ended up going there and absolutely loved it. It was a great experience.”

There was plenty of success. Coe-Brown lost three games during Watson’s four years, won two Class M state championships, and lost in a third. She scored over 1,000 career points. In 2021, Watson was inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame.

Watson played in college, but that experience was not the same. She was heavily recruited by the University of Maine, an NCAA Division I program. “Everything was great, and then the night before I was going to sign my scholarship, they called me and said ‘actually our first choice called and decided she wanted to come, so we don’t have room for you anymore. Thank you for everything and best of luck,’” recalled Watson.

At the time, Watson was devastated. She did not have a backup plan, and was suddenly in panic mode. Fortunately, a former UMaine assistant coach, Deb Reardon, had taken the head job at New Hampshire College. She invited Watson to join the team, which she did.

It was a great academic experience. But basketball was difficult. Used to winning at Coe-Brown, there was a lot of losing at NHC. The team won 11 games in her first three years, including an 0-27 mark during Watson’s junior season. “Basically I thought that was the end of my playing career,” she said. “I didn’t want to play any more after my junior year. I was thinking about giving up.”

The school made a coaching change just before Watson’s senior year. The new head coach was Dennis Masi and his assistant was Chris Wood. Ready to give up the game, the two convinced her not to. “I loved them,” she said. “They completely changed my whole attitude towards basketball; made me fall in love with it again.”

Watson had a decent senior year, the team won eight games, and she ended her career three points short of 1,000 points.

Masi talked with Watson after the season, noting she had some unfinished business. He felt she could play at the next level. She briefly considered pro basketball in the U.S., but figured that level was too much. Then she thought about playing in Europe.

Here the story takes an interesting turn. Already planning to vacation in Scotland thanks to a plane ticket purchased by her sister, Watson reached out to a team in Edinburgh. She was invited to their training camp, which she fit in during her vacation. The coach suggested she’d be better off playing in England – better money and more opportunity. There was one problem: it was already July and English teams were allowed just one American on their roster. Still, the coach was able to put Watson, who had returned to N.H., in contact with two teams. The Doncaster Panthers, located in Yorkshire, showed interest and offered her a contract. “I took a chance, got on a plane and came over,” she said.

Watson played one season with them, but was cut after the season. The coach was honest. It came down to Watson not scoring enough points. During that time, she had met her husband. “I left England thinking that was fun. One and done,” she recalled. “I met this great guy. I thought that was that.” Except it wasn’t.

She got a call from a team called Stockport, near Manchester, England. They had heard she had been cut, so they reached out. They couldn’t pay as much, but they were willing to piece together some other jobs coaching and working at area elementary schools to make it work. She played with the Lapwings for three seasons.

“Some of those girls are my current teammates,” Watson said. “I made some great friendships and am still quite close to the club.”

But after three years the Watsons needed a change. Her husband was in the British Army and decided to leave. There wasn’t much money. “We had to grow up and get some real jobs,” she said. “We went back to America.”

Watson stepped back from playing basketball while in the U.S., but she still stayed close to the sport. She coached the women’s team at Bard College, an NCAA Division 3 school in upstate New York, for five years; was the athletic director and  head girls hoop coach at St. Francis High School in Watsonville, California, also for five years; was an assistant principal at a California elementary school for one year, and then spent three years as an assistant commissioner for the California’s high school sports governing body running large-scale athletic events.

In 2018, the Watsons bought the family canal boat business in England, moved overseas and have been there ever since.

Both of Watson’s children are athletic. Elizabeth, 12, is a soccer goalie, while Harry, 10, is a basketball player. Both are big for their age and are projected to be tall like their mom when they get older – Elizabeth (6-4) and Harry (6-9). Mom calls Elizabeth a “tough little cookie,” while she describes Harry as “long and lean and athletic.”

Back in England, competitive basketball was not on her radar. Watson was playing with a local league team, but had not heard about masters basketball. An old teammate contacted her to say there was an ad online looking for women 40 and older to play for a FIMBA masters team to represent Great Britain.

“We both stewed on it for a while and then thought ‘why not?’” Watson said. “‘Let’s go for it.’ We jumped in the car and decided to give it a go. It was brilliant.”

Watson made the team. It started from there with six women. Today, the team has a roster of 21. The team ended up representing Great Britain last summer in the European Championships in Malaga, Spain. “It’s grown from there and there have been more opportunities from that,” Watson said.

Watson was already on a local league team, which is essentially neighboring towns playing each other. She joined the FIMBA club team with friends. Both are social teams. 

This past January, Watson attended a tryout for the top-level over-40 team, the GB Maxiballers. She made the team and started training for the world championships in Argentina, to be held Aug. 25 to Sept. 3. In June, she was picked as the team captain.

Although she is on three teams, the commitment is hardly overwhelming. The Maxiballers require one weekend every other month for a weekend of training. The FIMBA club team is a one weekend a month commitment, and her local league squad plays once a week. The Maxiballers are very competitive, but the other two teams have a fun factor that she enjoys. To illustrate that, her club team recently played in a tournament in Venice, Italy. “It’s very social,” she said. “Equal parts basketball and beer drinking.”

Staying in shape at her age is a challenge. “Being older and a big inside player, I have to work harder at things like fitness and endurance,” Watson said. “I do work out a lot on my own. I have a trainer I work with to get me ready.”

Watson had had no traumatic injuries, but there has been wear and tear on her knees. “They feel like they’re 85,” she said. “That’s a challenge. When you’re playing masters, you’re playing against other people your age. Everyone’s got little bumps and bruises.”

She laughs. “When you get to the tournaments on Saturday, everybody looks like LeBron James. When you go home on Sunday you definitely feel your age. … My knees struggle a little bit,” she added. “I’ve learned how to stretch out properly. I have to put in a little more time to get ready before and I have to take care after.”

Watson continues to embrace her New Hampshire roots. She still wears her reversible Coe-Brown warmup top when she practices. In fact, she left it behind after a recent Maxiballers training session. “I thought I had lost it,” she said. “I got pretty emotional, and then it turned up with a guy at the front desk.”

After her playing days, Watson sees herself getting into coaching. “It kind of naturally happens anyway,” she said. “I boss people around and people tend to listen.”

Player/coach anyone?

Ball 603’s Whaley publishes book

Longtime NH sportswriter and Ball 603 contributor Mike Whaley has released a book – “A Pen For All Seasons: Dispatches From a Rural New England Life in Sports.” It contains 65 of Whaley’s favorite stories and columns with photos from 35 years in the newspaper business.

PURCHASE YOUR COPY NOW!

Rochester and Farmington figure most prominently in the book, which includes stories Whaley has written since the late 1980s from the Rochester Courier, Rochester Times, Foster’s Daily Democrat and Portsmouth Herald.

There’s plenty on basketball. Here’s a list: Spaulding boys and girls basketball, including long-time former SHS coach Tim Cronin; Holy Rosary HS of Rochester, 1955 Class C boys champs; Nute’s David Burrows; Farmington’s 1970 state championship boys team and the 1967-68 Tiger Tigers, who were undefeated that season in volleyball, basketball and softball; Portsmouth’s Dan Parr and Sox great Carlton Fisk; Newmarket’s Ron Weitzell and Bert McGloughlin; UNH coach Gerry Friel; Oyster River girls coach Cathy Coakley; Whaley’s old college hoop teammates and friends, Bill Fitzgerald and John LeMieux, and the Austin-Cate Wildcats, 1971 NH Class S boys champs.

The book will be available (for $22) at the following book events: Collins Sports Center, Rochester, Saturday, May 20, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.; Farmington House of Pizza, Sunday, May 21, 5 to 7 p.m.; Rochester Public Library, Wednesday, June 7, 6 to 7:30 p.m., and Goodwin Library in Farmington, Thursday, June 22, 5 to 6:30 p.m. 

The book may also be purchased at Collins during regular business hours (closed Sundays) starting May 22.

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Whaley was a full-time area sportswriter from 1987 until his semi-retirement in 2019. He still writes occasionally for Foster’s and the Herald, as well as Ball603. A two-time New Hampshire Sportswriter of the Year, Whaley lives in Portland, Maine, with his wife, Jill.

The Long Run: Coach Smith just keeps on keeping on

By: Mike Whaley

When you’ve been coaching basketball for as long as Dave Smith has, it stands to reason that like it or not you will hit milestones and break records. Smith has been doing a bit of both lately, although he’d prefer the less said the better.

Smith recently completed his 56th straight year coaching hoop in New Hampshire, dating back to 1967-68 when he stepped into the head position at his alma mater, old Alton High School. The dean of the state’s hoop coaches, he’s the head boys coach at Coe-Brown Northwood Academy, a position he has held since 1990. Of his 56 years coaching, 46 have been spent at the high school varsity level – 13 years at Alton and 33 and counting at Coe-Brown.

At age 77, Smith is old enough to be a great grandfather to his players, and honestly most NH coaches weren’t even born when he got his start in ‘67. He’s not only CBNA’s boys hoop coach, but also the school’s headmaster (since 1980). On Feb. 6, during a 70-40 win over Plymouth, Smith became the winningest high school boys basketball coach in the state with his 628th win. He took that honor from the late Danny Parr, who happens to have more wins than any other coach in the state with 704 (627 as a boys coach and 77 coaching girls).

Dave Smith, back left, is pictured with his first team during the 1967-68 basketball season at Alton High School. In the front holding the ball is Mike Lee (24), who went on to become a Hall of Fame coach at nearby Farmington High School. [Courtesy photo]

Smith is third among the five N.H. coaches with over 600 wins with 633. He hit 600 in 2021 and passed John Fagula (624) earlier this past season. Should he return to coach at 78, he could overtake Gary Jenness (639) next year. Colebrook’s Buddy Trask (606) rounds out that select group. Jenness and Fagula coached girls, exclusively. Jenness at Groveton and White Mountains, while Fagula, who died in 2020, guided teams in Nashua and Londonderry.

“I really don’t follow it that closely,” Smith said of the new record. “Other people do. Obviously, I feel honored that I’ve been able to coach a lot of young men over the years.” Smith’s first win came in December of 1967 over Belmont, 93-62.

Smith is very familiar with Parr, who he first coached against when Parr was at St. Thomas Aquinas HS in Dover. The two also served for many years together on the New Hampshire Interscholastic Athletic Association (NHIAA) Basketball Committee. “Dan was a true gentleman,” Smith said. “I was very fortunate to have that opportunity to know him. … He was a hard worker on that committee for both boys and girls.”

Smith also mentioned that Parr enjoyed Coe-Brown’s pep band when his teams came to Northwood for games. “He would always take the time to go over and talk to our band director because he loved the pep band,” Smith said.

Dave Smith talks to his team during his first year as a varsity high school basketball coach in Alton during the 1967-68 season. This past season was his 56th as a hoop coach in N.H. [Courtesy photo]

Smith is an aberration in today’s high school coaching world – probably in any era given that at his age he still coaches and works as a headmaster. It has become less and less that coaches spend long stretches of time in the coaching profession. There are many factors, most notably the demands of the sport, which requires a year-round commitment to be successful. But at the top of the list is how parents have thrust themselves into the picture, in part due to specialization. Their presence can be an unwelcome and draining distraction for coaches.

Smith is fortunate in that he has provided Coe-Brown with stability. He has 56 years of service under his belt as a coach and an educator, while his top two assistants – David Daigle and James Johnson – have been teaching and coaching basketball at Coe-Brown for a combined 68 years. Daigle has been a math teacher and JV coach for 37 years (the first four years under Smith and the last 33 as the head JV coach). Johnson has been the reserve head coach for 31 years, and also teaches math in a room that adjoins Daigle’s. Between the three that’s 124 years of coaching experience. Now that’s stability.

[Courtesy John-Scott Sherburne]

“It’s been a blessing,” Smith said. “They all have the common goal of developing that individual team. We work as a glove together during the season and during the offseason too. We don’t usually have the top talent. By the end of the year we usually have them trying to be pretty competitive. … David and Jamie are dedicated and resourceful and are willing to do similar things. Everything kind of falls into place from there.”

Daigle recalls being Smith’s assistant JV coach (1986 to 1990). “He was obviously my mentor when I first came out,” Daigle said. “I wasn’t even a basketball player. I played football. Coach Smith took me and taught me how to be a coach.”

[Courtesy Jill Stevens]

Smith’s seemingly endless supply of energy that he brings to what he does, continually amazes Daigle. “I’m 60 years old,” he said. There will be nights when I’m tired and he’s out there at 77 years old going at it, and not accepting a mediocre effort; cranking them up and getting at them.”

Daigle said the parental support has been excellent. “You hear all this crazy stuff about other schools,” he said. “That’s just not the case about Coe-Brown.”

Johnson is a Northwood native. He recalls that his freshman year at Coe-Brown in 1980 was Smith’s first year as the school’s headmaster. “I’m the new guy,” Johnson laughs. “(Smith) still relates to the kids. He has this amazing ability to make every person feel like they are the crucial linch pin in the whole system. He’s been the leader for so long. It’s amazing how he does it.”

Still Smith laments the state of coaching in regards to the pressure parents and specialization, among other things, bring to bear. “It’s harder to get teachers to do it or want to be able to do it and be trained to do it,” he said. “If you want to stay in coaching, you have to stay up with the sport and be willing to continue learning. You have to maintain an understanding of how the profession is developing and where it is going.”

Smith attended Alton High School and then Plymouth State University before returning to Alton to teach and coach in 1967. He knew he wanted to be in education for the long haul. He wasn’t so sure about coaching.

[Courtesy Jill Stevens]

One thing he did know was that he liked the kids. The first couple of years he spent a lot of time with Frank Weeks in the gymnasium during weekends working with a variety of age groups – “just having fun enjoying working with kids,” he said.

He found over time that he enjoyed working with high school age kids, but the experience was invaluable in that he got to learn a lot about the different age groups and what made them tick.

Weeks was initially Smith’s assistant coach before he went on to coach girls. He recalls Smith’s decisiveness. “When you went to make a cut, he wanted a sharp cut,” said Weeks, who remains a friend of Smith’s more than a half century later. “Sometimes kids don’t understand that. Fake first and go fast. That was big with him. I think you can see that today with his teams. They’re very decisive in their moves.”

Former Farmington HS coach Mike Lee has a unique perspective about Smith unlike anyone else. He saw him as a player, played for him on his first teams in the late 1960s, and then coached against him when Smith was at Alton and Coe-Brown.

“He was not an outstanding player, but he was a tremendous role player,” said Lee of his old coach. “He knew you needed role players to win games. I think that was one of his mantras as he moved along. He had some tremendous role players. He always had two or three kids who could play, but those other kids knew exactly what they had to do to be successful.”

For example, Lee knew his role for Smith was a shooter/scorer, while also being expected to rebound and play defense. But there were other kids who weren’t allowed to shoot. That rubbed off on Lee when he coached. He had guys he wanted shooting the ball and others he did not; but those non-shooters still had integral roles.

Lee recalls Smith doing some drills with them and he was very competitive. “Consequently you wanted to beat the old man,” Lee said. “If you couldn’t beat him, he’d call you out on it. He didn’t put up with any crap.” Those who wouldn’t toe Smith’s line weren’t around for long, so Lee learned to keep his mouth shut.

Another memory for Lee was a state tournament game against Hollis when he was a senior in 1970 in which he had pneumonia. He played the whole game and Alton pulled off the upset. “That was a thing between us for a long time,” Lee said. “Was I sick and tired of playing for him or was I just sick?”

Lee started coaching at Farmington in 1977 when Smith was still at Alton. The two schools played each other and Lee remembers losing every game against Smith’s team during those first three years. He recalls being intimidated by his former coach.

There is one instance that stands out. Alton came to Farmington for a game. Lee wanted the floor to be spic and span, like it was when they went to Alton. The custodian swept the floor, but he applied a spray to the broom that made the floor slippery. When Alton came out for warmups, the players started slipping and falling down. “I’ll tell you, (Smith) went right off from there,” Lee said. “‘We’re not playing until this floor is playable’” was Lee’s recollection of Smith’s fired-up words. Smith pulled his team off the floor to make his point.

[Courtesy John-Scott Sherburne]

Eventually they got the floor in a playable state, but Lee was completely intimidated and, of course, the Tigers ended up losing to Alton. It was a lesson learned for Lee. “He taught me that you can’t be intimidated. You have to go out and coach what you believe in and don’t worry about the other team and the other coach,” Lee said. “I think he got the first six wins against us because I was scared to death.”

When they met up again in the 1990s, Lee was finally able to get some wins. But it didn’t stop him from learning from his old mentor. “He’s the only coach I know who will take a timeout 30 seconds into a game,” Lee said. “I’ve seen him do that a dozen times in my career. I could go out and score the first four points of the game – timeout right away. He wasn’t going to wait until he was behind 8-0 or 10-0.”

Lee tells a story that kind of sums up who Smith is. Coe-Brown was playing in the Farmington holiday tournament last December, and Lee noted to Smith that it must be great for him – just like a home game. Except Smith, instead of making the short drive to Alton after the game, said he’s taking the bus back to Coe-Brown with the team because his assistant coaches have longer drives than he does. “How many coaches do that nowadays?” Lee said. “That’s an example of his leadership; how he treats his team and his family. Hence respect.”

Smith has done just about everything one can do in his profession as both an educator and coach. He’s won a lot of games, touched a lot of kids, and elevated Coe-Brown as an educational institution. Heck, he’s even had a building named after him (Smith Hall where there are classrooms and the gym). His 1996-97 team won a state championship (in Class M/Division III). And he’s coached his own son and then has coached against him.

During his break from varsity HS coaching in the 1980s, Smith coached elementary hoop for a while with his son, Mike, on the team. “I have the distinction of being in the last class not coached by coach Smith,” said Mike with a laugh, referring to his graduation year of 1990 from Coe-Brown. His dad took over as head coach the following year.

“Not every kid has a hall of fame coach for their elementary/middle school experience,” Mike Smith said. “It was amazing. I told one of my buddies the other day, ‘I’ve sat on the bench in some capacity for the last five decades.’”

Mike recalls in the 1970s being a ball boy for his dad’s Alton teams. “Then it was playing and finally coaching,” he said. “He instilled in me, like so many other kids, a love for the game. I had amazing experiences from fifth to eighth grade learning the game from my dad.”

During that time, coach Smith recalls becoming a referee, and did quite a few games at the high school and prep level. “That process helped me to be a better coach in my mind,” he said. “I respected officials even though sometimes we might not see eye to eye on every individual call. But I respect them.”

Coe-Brown coach Dave Smith, left, is pictured with his son, Mike, the head coach at John Stark Regional High School during a game this year at John Stark on Feb. 7. [Courtesy photo]

When Mike got into teaching, he was all in, but he wasn’t sure about coaching. But then Stark head coach Don Poitras needed a JV coach, so Mike hopped right in. After three years guiding the JVs, he was elevated to head coach. He has been a social studies teacher and coach at the Weare school for 26 years.

In 2004, he faced his dad for the first time – in the Class I/Division II semifinals at UNH. “There was so much going on it was maybe hard to appreciate at the time,” Mike said. “I just remember that I was fortunate to have better players than he did that night. We were able to get him.”

Mike added, “It did help that I knew some of the stuff that they would be throwing at us.”

“I love seeing him and I love playing him,” Smith said of games against his son. “It’s not like an Army-Navy type of game. It’s not like we’re playing Oyster River. That type of rivalry thing. It’s more of a respectful game. Obviously he plays to win. I play to win. When it’s over, it’s over. It’s not going to affect Christmas or Thanksgiving at all.”

Another memory for Mike is showing up at Coe-Brown for a game with his John Stark team, and finding out that his dad was going for his 400th career win from his old coach, Walt Damon. Damon turned to Mike and said something to the effect of – albeit a little more colorful, ‘your dad’s going for his 400th tonight. Good luck getting a call.’”

Mike chuckles, adding, “I have played a role in (my dad) getting some wins for sure.”

One thing Mike learned early on from coaching and from his dad is that it’s about the players. “It’s the kids who sort of make or break things,” he said. “As coaches, we try to put them in positions where they can be successful. Out of all the stuff I learned from him, that might be the most important.”

Smith feels he has been able to continue to coach because he’s willing to adapt. “You have to be willing to accept change and be willing to change yourself, and yet not give up on the things you think are important for the character development of young men and women,” he said. 

Smith added, “I think it’s a willingness to evaluate what’s around you, a willingness to listen to people, to listen to kids even if they believe in different things that I believe in as far as certain directions or themes in life in general.”

It’s a year to year thing for Smith when it comes to what he does coaching and as an administrator – especially with his wife experiencing health problems in recent years. He said he still feels like he has the energy and enthusiasm to continue without actually saying he’s coming back. Part of it has been due to the high quality players he had this year. They made the season enjoyable. The Bears qualified for the Division II tournament, won in the first round before they were upset in the quarters by rival Oyster River.

“I’m blessed with the kids that I had,” Smith said. “They’re genuinely nice young men. They get along. If I were to write a chapter on how all this should be, they would be in that chapter.”

Three generations of Smiths gather for a photo during a summer hoop camp in 2022 at Coe-Brown Northwood Academy. To the left is Coe-Brown coach Dave Smith. Dave’s grandsons (Bennett, Cole, and Josh) are pictured in between him and his son, Mike. [Courtesy photo]

Smith talks about the family commitment, which plays a major role in him continuing to do both jobs, along with his physical and mental health. “My wife (Maureen) will go down in sainthood for putting up with me for many years,” he said. “You take each year at a time. It’s a sacrifice for her. I do worry about it at times. But she has been so supportive.”  

Even his children (Amy and Mike) were supportive during their formative years because they spent countless hours in the gym with their dad. “They were around it a lot,” he said. “There were a lot of good things, a lot of good kids that they met. Nothing bad about being in the gym as opposed to other places.

“I was lucky,” Smith said. “It has to be a family commitment, even now that I have grandkids. Fortunately they have liked basketball at some time in their lives – early or late – and other sports.”

Family, education and basketball are at the center of Dave Smith’s universe. All important. All connected. “Basketball obviously became a life experience for many kids because it does represent life in a lot of ways as far as the team atmosphere.”

Mike Smith can’t drive home the point enough about the effect his dad has had on his life. “I was just very fortunate that I had the dad I had,” he said. “One of the biggest lessons I’ve experienced from a personal perspective through coaching is you come across these kids and they either don’t have a dad or their dad is not involved as much as they could be or should be. It was in my fifth or sixth year of coaching and I remember driving home. I called him and said ‘Thank you.’”

Smith didn’t know at first what his son was saying, but Mike explained it and it became immediately clear. “All those nights when he spent that time with me, whether it was pitching Little League or shooting (baskets) in the backyard, all of that helped me to develop to be the person that I am,” Mike added. “To see kids not having that is so tough. But at the same time it’s what drives us to give those kids that experience. He’s great. Words sometimes fail me. He’s been a mentor for me as a man, as a coach, as an educator. I’ve been very fortunate to have him in my life.” Now that’s a victory.

Lofty expectations: No bar is too high for Ava Winterburn

By Mike Whaley

Ava Winterburn sets her bar high because that’s who she is. The Goffstown High School basketball star expects more from herself, not less.

“I always told people I wanted to be in the NBA when I was little,” she said with a laugh. When people told her there were no women in the NBA, she’d respond: “I know, but I want to be the first.”

That’s how Ava Winterburn rolls.

Led by Winterburn, Goffstown entered the Division I tournament Tuesday as the No. 4 seed. The Grizzlies improved to 16-3 with a big second half to claim a convincing 58-30 win over No. 13 Salem, paced by Winterburn’s 25 points and 19 from junior guard Maggie Sasso. Goffstown will host No. 5 Pinkerton in the quarterfinals on Friday.

It’s been quite a journey for Winterburn, a senior 6-foot-1 forward/guard, who will attend Southern New Hampshire University on scholarship. A four-year member of the Goffstown varsity, she has grown into one of the best players in the state. A returning first-team all-state player, Winterburn leads D-I in scoring, averaging 26 points per game.

Winterburn growth and maturity has been evident this season to her coach, Steve Largy. “It’s been fun to watch,” he said. “I get to go back and relive how she’s progressed and developed. She’s had a lot of the tools in the bag for a long, long time. She’s developed so much mentally and emotionally. She’s leading the break. She’s leading us in rebounds. She has an extremely high motor in practice. When you combine that level of skill that she’s developed in her work in the off-season and during the season, it’s pretty amazing.”

Watching Winterburn playing these days, one sees a 6-1 player with a great overall game. “One through four is where she can play,” Largy said. “And she can guard one through four. She’s a really big commodity at the college level.”

That wasn’t lost on SNHU coach Karen Pinkos when she recruited Winterburn. “What I love the most about her is that she’s basically a versatile player,” Pinkos said. “She can play inside, outside. She can handle the ball at her height. She can shoot the 3. She’s got a lot to her game.”

Winterburn’s maturity development was also something that resonated with Pinkos. She has known Winterburn since she was in grade school coming to SNHU summer camps, so she has seen the Goffstown player develop over time. “I went to see her play her junior year in high school,” Pinkos recalled. “She struggled a little bit with maturity in terms of getting frustrated and then fouling out all the time.”

When Pinkos saw Winterburn over the summer playing with her AAU team and HS squad, she could see a change. “I felt like she matured as a player, as a person. She just kept getting better,” said Pinkos, who believes Winterburn’s versatility could make her a special player in SNHU’s league – the Northeast-10 Conference.

This has been a breakout year for Winterburn, who has been good in previous years. This year, however, she has embraced all facets of her game, improved on defense (a necessity in college) and become an even better team player, and thus a much better overall player.

The Grizzlies success comes from the trust Winterburn has for her teammates, a very good group that includes classmates Ava Vaughan, Ava Ruggiero and Caroline Foreman, Sasso, and Winterburn’s sophomore sister, Meredith.

In past years, Winterburn felt compelled to check out the scorebook after games to see how many points she had scored. This year, there has been far less of that.

Late in the season she had a string of 20-plus games including back-to-back 41-point games. “It came naturally,” Largy said. “It’s not like she has to check the book after the game. It’s very organic. It’s very few shots. It’s happening in context of the flow of the offense or she’s getting rebounds or loose balls. She’s constantly up there in rebounds and assists. People are impressed with the score lines, but if you’re watching it happen, it’s way more impressive because it’s happening the right way.”

Winterburn can see the change. “This year I’m more comfortable on the floor than I’ve ever felt,” she said. “I think I’ve come with the mentality that I know my points are going to come. What else do I have to do to pull out a win?”

She recalls her second 41-point game, a win over Londonderry. She played the whole game. When the team manager told Winterburn that she had scored 41 points, she was surprised. “I wasn’t even thinking about it,” she said. “I just wanted to win the game. It was a pretty tight game until the end. That was my entire focus. That just shows how much I have grown since my underclassman years.”

It’s been a process with plenty of growing pains. In her first year, Winterburn was the only freshman on a team with nine seniors. Largy could see she was going to be good. Still, she didn’t play very much, which did not sit well with her. 

“Honestly, it sucked,” Winterburn said. “I’ve never been a kid who sat on the bench.”

She recalls going home and crying because at one stretch she sat three games in a row. “Now, looking back on it, I wasn’t ready mentally,” she said. “I wasn’t as good as I thought I was. I really learned my place. That experience with so many seniors, I got to figure out the right way to do it. It was a long, long lesson.”

As frustrating as her freshman season was, Winterburn did get a chance to shine. In the first round playoff game against Portsmouth, she came off the bench to score nine points to spark a 44-32 win. 

“I probably wasn’t expecting to go in,” she said. “Once I stepped on the court it was like ‘OK, how do I not go back to the bench? Because I don’t want to sit on the bench again.’”

It was a big boost for the freshman. “Being a big part of the playoff game, I think it said something about my persistence,” Winterburn recalled. “It wasn’t like I just sat on the bench and said ‘Whoa, I’m just a bench player.’ Here I am. I continued to work for it. I wanted minutes and when I finally got them, I showed why I deserved them.”

No. 6 Goffstown advanced to the quarters, upsetting No. 3 Manchester Memorial, 53-50. Next up was the semifinals against No. 10 Londonderry, but it never happened. The tournament was canceled due to Covid-19. No. 1 Bishop Guertin was awarded the state championship.

What should have been an exciting moment turned painful. “They shut us down,” Largy said. “We didn’t get to get on a bus and go to that for the nine seniors, who were set to do that. It was extremely disruptive. A lot of them were robbed of that first experience to go play at a neutral site and do that whole tournament experience thing.”

It was a good learning experience for Winterburn. She didn’t like sitting on the bench, but that didn’t stop her from soaking up every scrap of knowledge she could. On bus rides, she sat up front with the coaches and talked basketball, seeking ways to improve her game. At games, she had a designated spot beside assistant coach Nate Bracy. “We were always talking about the game,” she said. “Bracy loves to talk basketball and so do I. During the game we’d be talking and I was always ready to go in because I was seeing the game and what we could do (to win).”

As bad as it was sitting, Winterburn made the best of it. “I wouldn’t say I was having a pity party for myself,” she said.

Things changed in a big way when she was a sophomore. The nine seniors were gone, and she quickly found herself cast as the team’s leader and leading scorer. It was a strange season because there were Covid protocols in place that hampered playing (wearing masks), reduced the schedule and generally wreaked havoc with the season.

“It feels like it didn’t exist,” Winterburn said. “I feel like I went from freshman to junior year.”

There was a shorter regional schedule that culminated with an open tournament. Goffstown hosted Trinity in the first round, a team they had beaten late in the season. The Pioneers rallied from a 15-point halftime deficit to pull off a 39-38 win, sparked by 26 points from senior Colby Guinta. She hit the game-winning 3-pointer with 16 seconds to play.

Winterburn remembers after the game coach Largy saying, “That’s a senior. That’s what you play like when you’re a senior. That’s your last shot.” It didn’t resonate as much with a bunch of sophomores as it did to a senior who was used to being in that position.

“It was painful at the time,” Largy said. “But you learn so much from it. They got it. They see the progression from sophomore year to last year, taking the next step in the playoffs and winning that first game.”

There was some frustration for Winterburn early in her junior season. Opposing teams were focusing on her. She suddenly found herself dealing with defenses designed to stop her – and some of it was working. In addition, she had this bad habit of worrying about how many points she had scored. “It was frustrating. (She kept asking herself) ‘how many points did I get? Did I have enough points? Is my average going to go up?’”

Winterburn pauses for a second. “If we’re being honest, sometimes I still think like that,” she said. “But last year it was pretty bad. It was in the back of my mind ‘how many points did I get?’” 

While she was navigating the scoring piece, she was also introducing guard skills to expand her game. Before she had been a back-to-the-basket player because she was the tallest kid. “That wasn’t going to work for long,” she said. “I had to develop guard skills and I really got to put them into play.”

About half way through the season, Winterburn experienced a change for the better. She talked about the frustration of being face guarded and scoring six points. While that wasn’t fun, Goffstown did win the game. “I think that brings everything full circle,” she said. “I have great teammates surrounding me and even if I’m not having my best game, we can still pull out a win. I think that was an important switch that flipped for me.”

Largy saw the change as well. “She really became not just rim focused,” he said. “She started to see the floor somewhere in that year. Now she’s able to pick out open teammates and kick to open shooters in the corner. She was using her teammates in a way she hadn’t before because she was attracting so much defensive attention.”

Looking back it was a humbling experience for Winterburn. “‘There’s no I in team,’ the classic saying,” she said. “I really started to figure that out. I started to become a more selfless player. I always knew I had the people surrounding me who were good. I love all of my teammates. But I feel like at the end of the day I just needed to have more trust in them.”

The Grizzlies ended up winning in the 2022 tournament first round over Alvirne, before losing in the quarterfinals to Bedford, a team they have never beaten. Bedford has always presented a mental challenge for Goffstown. As Winterburn noted, it’s a constant loop where Goffstown players hear that Bedford is so much better than Goffstown. “You always have that in the back of your mind whenever you play Bedford,” she said. “Everybody is always saying ‘we have Bedford. We’re going to lose.’”

The Bedford loss did not sit well with Winterburn, who ended up in tears. “I’ve never seen anyone take a loss as hard as she did last year,” Largy said. “The big part is how she responded. She took that one to heart and did everything in the offseason to prevent that from happening again.”

This has been a great season for Winterburn and the Grizzlies. She has cemented her college plans at SNHU, and recently eclipsed 1,000 career points – an impressive feat given how little she played as a freshman and Goffstown’s shortened Covid season during her sophomore year. The SNHU decision, as it turned out, was pretty easy. “SNHU is the first college that believed in me,” she said. “You have to believe in someone to give them money to go to school.”

Everything felt right about SNHU, which is currently 20-6 and playing in the NE-10 tournament semifinals on Thursday. “I felt I could see myself there,” Winterburn said. “The coaching staff really made me feel welcome and wanted.” She also wants to stay involved with the Goffstown program, with its coaches and players. She has sisters playing now, and she wants the Goffstown players to come to her games. “The pieces all fit,” she said. “I chose SNHU because I’m going to play great basketball and still be involved with the community.”

But, for now, Winterburn and her teammates will focus on the matter at hand – to go as deep as they can in the D-I tournament. Which, in this case, comes back to defense, an aspect of her game that has improved by leaps and bounds. “You want to be on offense as much as possible, so you better play good defense,” she said. “There’s another saying – ‘offense wins games, defense wins championships.’ I want a championship.”

Aiming High: Laconia boys looking to make history

By Mike Whaley

LACONIA – Kayden Roberts and Keaton Beck like the view from the top. They both know they’ll like it even better if they can be there on the podium accepting the Division II boys basketball state championship plaque on March 12 in Durham.

Roberts and Beck are the main guys for the Laconia High School team that is 17-1 and the top seed in the D-II tournament – a first for the Sachems. Their goal is to do something no other Laconia squad has done, which is to win a state title.

“We’ve dipped our toes in the water,” said Beck, a 6-foot-6 junior forward/center who is averaging 19.6 points per game. “Now it’s time to fully submerge. It’s like game mode.”

Laconia has for sure had a taste of the tournament. When Roberts was a freshman, the Sachems lost on the road at Hollis-Brookline in the final seconds. In 2021, a senior-dominated team with Roberts and Beck providing support advanced to the semis, losing to eventual champion, Lebanon, 58-46. Last year, they won a first-round playoff game over Coe-Brown before No. 1 Souhegan rolled over them in the quarters.

“We got a taste of it a couple years ago,” said Roberts, a 5-7 all-state scoring point guard (21.6 ppg). “Now we really want to be the last one standing and put a banner up for the first time.”

Indeed, while Laconia feels good about its basketball tradition, it doesn’t include a state title (boys or girls). The Sachem boys last made a championship appearance in 1978 (57-46 loss to Pembroke in Class I), one of just two in program history.

“To me, how do you define tradition?” asked coach Steve McDonough, who is in his 12th year as coach. “For me, I teach (mathematics) in the building as well. Just because we don’t have the tradition of being a final four or championship team, there is a lot of tradition of being a Sachem in Laconia. There’s a lot of alumni that are very invested; former coaches that are very invested in keeping tabs on where these kids are.

McDonough added: “Kayden scored his 1,000th point a couple of games ago – one of five Sachem players now in the history of Laconia High School. The amount of alumni that reached out is special – former coaches – even Red Charland who coached Jim Swormstedt to his 1,000 points in (1987). I do think there is tradition. I would say ‘yes’ we don’t have a long tradition of winning in basketball.”

Which is something Roberts, Beck and their Laconia teammates are working hard to change.

The D-II regular season wraps up this week with the tournament set to open on Tuesday with first-round games. Because the Sachems are one of the top two seeds, they will get a bye to the second round. They will host a quarterfinal game on March 3, possibly vs. the Merrimack Valley-Lebanon winner.

Laconia ended the season with some big wins, including a wild one-point victory over Pelham, an 84-67 win over a very good ConVal squad with the division’s leading scorer in Joe Gutwein, and then a gutsy 65-52 decision at Oyster River to sew up the top seed. “I told the guys yesterday when they got off the bus (after the OR win) you have until midnight tonight to be as pumped as you want,” coach McDonough said. “We just did something special. But come tomorrow that doesn’t matter anymore. Today is tomorrow.”

Roberts and Beck feel like the groundwork has been laid to get Laconia to the ultimate level. All the Sachems, for the most part, grew up playing together – from LAYBL (Lou Athanas Youth Basketball League) to middle school to high school.

Roberts highlights how important it was his sophomore year to experience the trip to the semifinals with an experienced group of seniors led by Logan Paronto and DeMarco McKissic, Beck’s older brother. “They showed us what it’s like to win and play at that high level,” Roberts said. 

Now Roberts and Beck wear the leadership mantle, and have worn it well as the Sachems have successfully navigated their regular season to earn the top seed. Along the way they have had some big wins over quality squads, including Manchester West, Coe-Brown, Pelham, ConVal, Kennett, and Lebanon. The one hiccup was a 50-42 loss at Souhegan on Jan. 6.

“That loss hurt us,” Roberts said. “Souhegan is a really tough team. They defend the ball really well and they’ve got a lot of guys who play really hard. They’ve got a deep team. As a program, I know we all feel the same way – we wish we could get that game back.”

“That game kind of shot us down a bit,” Beck said. “We are still looking to go higher; the ceiling isn’t high enough.”

Coach McDonough thinks the Sachems weren’t ready for Souhegan. “They’ve been there before and we haven’t,” he said. “It was a playoff atmosphere in their gym. … They jumped out early on us. We clawed back and had a three- or five-point lead with three minutes to go. Their composure and their experience got them the timely buckets they needed and we reverted to some bad habits. The ball stopped moving and we forced a few shots. The next thing we know we look up and we’re down five when we have to start playing the foul game down the stretch.”

Until Laconia can prove otherwise, McDonough feels Souhegan is the team to beat. “Peter (Pierce) does such a good job of having those kids dialed in and ready to execute in those tight situations,” McDonough said. “They’re the better team. We hope to have the opportunity (to see them in the postseason) because that would mean we’ve won some playoff games. If we’re going to see them again, it’ll be a tremendous test to see if these guys have learned what they need to learn and I’ve taught them what I need to teach. Hopefully I’m right in my assessment that they’ve played with a composure to execute down the stretch that you need when you get to these games.”

Kayden Roberts is at the head of what Laconia does because he is the point guard and a main scorer. He is expected to do a lot. McDonough said the senior’s game has evolved over time. He came in as a freshman, started for a bit, but settled into a role as a contributor off the bench. As a sophomore, he was the primary point guard, while last year he had to score more for a team that struggled on offense.

“This year I challenged him to take the game from last year and be 15-20 percent less selfish and get other guys involved,” McDonough said. “We have a lot of great athletes on this team. We have some good shooters and that will open the floor up for him and Keaton. I think he’s done a phenomenal job with that.”

McDonough has pushed Roberts harder than most of his players because the senior is motivated when you tell him he can’t do something. After his freshman year, McDonough told him he couldn’t shoot. Roberts came back as a sophomore and was the team’s best shooter. After his sophomore year, his coach told him he couldn’t defend. Roberts came back as a junior as a better defender.

“After last year I told him he couldn’t be a playmaker for other people and he couldn’t defend at an elite level and he’s come back this year and he’s probably the most well-rounded player that I’ve had in my time here,” the coach said. “It’s all a testament to instead of him taking what I was offering and looking for a way out, looking for motivation out of it. He’s motivated by those types of things. He wants to prove me wrong and I’m happy to be proven wrong.”

As for Beck, McDonough said, “he’s a double-double off the bus. … To me, Keaton is a dominant force as a big man. He’s a match-up nightmare for most teams in that he can run the floor. He’s athletic. If he needs to put the ball on the floor a little bit, he can. It’s really kind of impossible to body him up with just one body. He’s just massively strong. He rebounds the ball extremely well. He has hands around the hoop that are phenomenal. He does a great job of keeping his hands high and finishing high.”

Beck is referred to as a “cheat code” in practice by his teammates because there are some drills where it’s too easy to just throw the ball over the top to him.

“You get the combo of those two for us as captains and leaders, it’s special,” McDonough said.

It’s what has allowed Laconia to have success. Roberts and Beck know their roles and realize the value of their teammates. “We’ve got a lot of players like Carson Tucker, Rowan Jones, Sam Knowlton, Logan Sanchez,” Roberts said. “They’re all really good basketball players. They play well within our system. They know that me and Keaton are the main guys. They’re really good role players. They get us the ball when they need to. They can also hit the open shots and work the ball around when they need to.”

Junior Carson Tucker is another guard, who can play point to take pressure off Roberts. “He’s an absolutely tremendous all-around athlete,” coach McDonough said, referring to Tucker’s ability as an all-state lacrosse player, who has also played football and soccer. “He usually defends the toughest matchup on the other team. It may be a guard; he may defend a big wing. He can defend any position on the floor because of his strength.

McDonough calls Jones the team’s “Swiss Army Knife” because he doesn’t care about stats. “He cares about winning,” the coach said. “He just goes out there and makes those quality gutsy plays whether it’s taking a charge at an opportune time or getting on the floor for a loose ball to get the energy going.”

Knowlton is a 6-3 senior forward with, according to McDonough, phenomenal footwork and a good sense for the game. “He’s come into his own shooting the ball lately,” his coach said. “We have lots of opportunities for drives and kicks and post touches and kicks when you have players like Kayden and Keaton. He’s been capitalizing there. He’s just another tremendous senior leader for us. … He’s hungry to win and wants to push these guys.

Caden Tucker is a 6-2 sophomore forward and Carson’s younger brother. Off the bench he gives Laconia size and length, shoots the ball really well and has a great sense for the game, according to McDonough.

Sanchez, a 6-2 junior forward, is an all-state quarterback “who learned in football quickly to give the ball to Keaton and get out of the way,” McDonough said. “He does a good job of that in basketball. He plays really good defense for us and has great length around the basket.”

Finn Mousseau is a 5-9 senior, who is the combo guard off the bench if there is foul trouble. He rounds out the rotation of eight that see the lion’s share of the playing time.

Two sophomores who swing up from the JV team and will figure in next year’s conversation are Brady Stevens and Matt Robinson. Senior Alex Marcano is playing high school hoop for the first time. He has an enviable task in practice to challenge and toughen up Beck to make him better.

“It’s been a full-team effort all year,” McDonough said. “It will continue to be for us to have any chance of being successful.”

As for style of play, the Sachems play an uptempo game on offense that relies on what McDonough calls “pace and space.” It’s not necessarily running at all times, but it does rely on keeping the ball and the players moving to maximize flow and rhythm.

On defense, Laconia plays strictly man to man; mostly in the halfcourt, but they will go full court man if need be. “For us in defense, it’s really simple,” McDonough said. “We want to keep guys in front of us. We want to see both (our player and the ball).” 

The second season is here. Laconia is right where it wants to be, riding a 13-game winning streak into the tournament and playing its best basketball. 

Being the No. 1 seed is a program first. There is some belief that the 1955 Class L finalist team was a regional No. 1, but this is the first time that the Sachems are sitting atop the standings across the division going into the tournament.”

“That’s something to be proud of and I think the guys are pumped in all that entails in getting a home playoff game,” coach McDonough said. “I think they also know that that happened yesterday. And really the task at hand now is to go defend home court next Friday night. We now know that there’s a bigger bull’s eye on our back than there has been possibly forever. We relish that opportunity. We’re not going to take it lightly.”

Game ready! Banghart handles challenges at UNC, Princeton

By Mike Whaley

Although basketball has been a life-long passion for Courtney Banghart, she wasn’t always sure it would be her vocation.

Once she realized it could be, she grabbed on firmly with both hands. She has developed into one of the finest college basketball coaches in the nation.

The New Hampshire native is now in her fourth year resurrecting the scandal-plagued women’s team at the University of North Carolina. Banghart’s current UNC squad is 18-7 and ranked 19th in the two most recent national polls. Before UNC, she transformed Princeton University into a top Ivy League program. In 2015, after leading the Tigers to a 30-0 regular season, she was recognized as the Naismith National Coach of the Year. Between the two schools she has over 300 wins in 16 seasons.

But there was a time when Banghart felt soccer would be her sport in college and that her future was likely in the sciences or maybe as a school head.

Banghart grew up in rural Amherst, New Hampshire, a town of nearly 11,000 people located in the south central section of the state, somewhat between Manchester and Nashua. She attended Souhegan High School from 1992 to 1996 where she was one of the state’s most decorated three-sport athletes. She excelled in soccer, basketball and tennis, leading Souhegan teams to eight state championships in those three sports. Individually, she set the state record – that’s been since broken – for most career goals in soccer (147), eclipsed the 1,000-point mark in basketball, and in tennis captured a state singles title (1995) and two in doubles (1994, 1995).

University of North Carolina women’s basketball head coach Courtney Banghart confers with junior guard Deja Kelly. A native of New Hampshire, Banghart is in her fourth year at UNC. [Photo courtesy of UNC Athletic Communications]

Banghart said she was lucky she was born in a state where at the time it was OK to play three sports. “We really specialize early now at this stage,” she said. “If I had had to specialize that early, it probably would have been soccer. I was more talented, more decorated, obviously.”

She added, “Athletics has been my thing. It’s what I’ve been best at. It’s what I’ve enjoyed the most. My first word was ‘ball’ not ‘mom’ or ‘dad’. That’s just been my life.”

Banghart said that when she went to Dartmouth College in the Ivy League because her dad was pretty sure that sports were not going to be in her future. She was heavily recruited for soccer, receiving offers from schools like Boston College and Notre Dame. She chose Dartmouth who was coached by current Virginia coach, Steve Swanson. Her feeling was that if soccer was going to pay her way, then that was the path she needed to take. But before she entered the Hanover school, Swanson took the job at Stanford. That left Banghart with two choices – follow Swanson to Stanford or stay as a Dartmouth recruit.

Well, actually there were three choices. Basketball was still her favorite sport and, frankly, Banghart was looking for any excuse to play it. She called the basketball coach.

Banghart hammers home her love for basketball. Yes, she was good at multiple sports, and she was best at soccer, but basketball was her passion. “My dad would always say, I’d finish a soccer game and have on my shin guards and go out and shoot hoops for an hour,” she said. “It was like a made-for-TV movie. I just loved hoop. I watched it. I used to watch the Celtics every Friday night. I just loved it. I still do.”

Growing up, Banghart did not get the exposure in basketball that you need to gain the attention of college coaches. “I didn’t do the whole AAU thing,” she said. “My parents weren’t financially prepared to spend that much money, They didn’t see the value in that.”

New Hampshire native Courtney Banghart played basketball at Dartmouth College where she was a two-time All-Ivy League pick and led the Big Green to a pair of Ivy League championships. [Photo courtesy of Dartmouth College Athletics]

Serendipity came into play when Banghart decided to play college basketball. Then Dartmouth coach, Chris Wielgus, was actually familiar with her and knew she was a good player. She had seen Banghart play for Souhegan against Hanover High School in the 1996 Class I state final because at the time her son was dating one of the Hanover players. Banghart had a great game, scoring 30-plus points in a 60-57 win.

“She knew who I was because she watched me play in high school,” Banghart recalled. “It’s kind of weird and strange now in this day and age, but being from a small town, your exposure is different than being in a more urban environment.”

Banghart laughs about it now, but at the time she chose Dartmouth and soccer because her parents wanted her to go to an Ivy League school, and soccer was the ticket to help pay for that. “Even if Steve (Swanson) had stayed, I can guarantee I would have found myself over to the basketball team,” she said.

Banghart played four years for the Big Green, leading them to a pair of Ivy League titles and twice earning first-team All-Ivy honors. She owned the Ivy League record with 273 career 3-pointers until it was broken in 2019 by Harvard’s Katie Benzan (287). In 1999, she earned the Ed Seitz Award as the top 3-point specialist in the nation after connecting on a program-best 97 three-pointers.

It was during her first job at Episcopal High School, a boarding school, in Alexandria, Virginia, that Banghart realized that maybe sports could be a vocation. She was the school’s assistant athletic director and then girls’ AD while coaching tennis and basketball during a three-year stint.

Doing what she did at Episcopal was a grind. “I’m not afraid of the grind,” she said. “I’m wired that way. I also saw the income. It didn’t match the grind. I thought if I want to do this, I should probably do this at the college level.”

It still wasn’t necessarily coaching, but Banghart was definitely thinking about sports; maybe as an athletic director or something similar.

She applied to graduate schools, getting accepted at the Harvard School of Education. When she told her dad, he asked who was footing the bill. She went to Dartmouth instead because they paid for it. She got her master’s degree while working with the Dartmouth women’s basketball team as an assistant coach from 2003-07, which included a pair of Ivy League championships.

Courtney Banghart holds Dartmouth College’s record for career 3-pointers made with 273. [Photo courtesy of Dartmouth College Athletics]

Where Banghart is in her life as a coach may have come down to one week in 2007. She turned 29, defended her graduate thesis and was offered the head job at Princeton.

“I always say about (Princeton athletic director) Gary Walters, he saw it before I did,” Banghart said of that coaching break, one she did not expect. She recalls showing up for the interview with a single piece of paper. “Here, this is me,” she said. “I’m almost embarrassed about how I interviewed for that job. But he saw it in me before I did.”

So there it was. Banghart was 29 and a head coaching job was on the table. It wasn’t something she was necessarily seeking. “Honestly, it kind of happened more so than I had made a conscious decision that coaching was going to be my life,” she said. “Once I hit the ground running at Princeton, I found my thing, as they say.”

Without a doubt.

In her 12 years at Princeton, she led the team to a lengthy list of league and Princeton firsts and bests. They won seven Ivy League titles and made it to the NCAA tournament eight times. Before she arrived, the Tigers had never made the NCAA tournament, and only once in their previous eight seasons had they had a winning record.

“It’s all about people,” Banghart said. “The program I inherited, we play them twice every year in the Ivy League. At Dartmouth I played them eight times as a player and eight times as an assistant and went 16-0 against them. So I knew what I was getting myself into.”

There were good players in place when Banghart got there. Though they hadn’t had success, they could speak positively about the school and the new coach. “They really helped me to recruit the next group,” she said.

One thing Banghart found was that she was very good at recruiting. “There are two types of coaches in our line of work,” she said. “Those who can recruit and those who get fired. I knew that recruiting was going to be important. I really got lucky. I got a lot of talented kids those first few years and the rest took care of itself.”

Because she was good at recruiting, of course, didn’t mean it was easy. “I think in coaching because it’s a journey of people, you’re constantly making decisions,” Banghart said. “You’re talking about that from a recruiting space; everybody has strengths, weaknesses and holes. You kind of have to build your team where you connect the strengths and the holes are complementary. Maybe it’s just dumb luck that I’m good at it.”

New Hampshire native Courtney Banghart has been a women’s college head basketball coach since 2007, the last four years at the University of North Carolina. [Photo courtesy of UNC Athletic Communications]

But she feels she can actually pick up beyond scoring, rebounding and defending on people that she thinks are really talented. “That proved me well at Princeton because you’re splitting hairs a little bit,” Banghart said.

At North Carolina, of course, you’re trying to get All-Americans. “But it’s the same idea,” she said. “Who are the kids to be the ones to help you win a national championship? I don’t have a very good answer for that. My mom has asked me that many times. ‘How do you know so-and-so is going to be good?’ I watch closely. I do the whole circle of recruiting. I talk to everyone in their circle. I talk to them a lot. Then I trust my evaluation. When they get here, I coach the hell out of them.”

Banghart coached the hell out of her Princeton players for 12 years until she felt she was ready for a new challenge. “We were literally hammering everybody,” she said. “I think partly I was 39 or 40 and I thought there was one more challenge in me in this industry. It didn’t feel OK to me that I’d give this much of my life to women’s basketball and I’d spend all of it in the Ivy League. What’s the next challenge?”

At Princeton, she’d been spoiled. “Princeton has a world-wide brand,” she said. “You recruit nationally. It’s a beautiful campus. It’s a wonderful place to live.” Banghart had also started a family there with her wife, Michele DeJuliis.

She had all these “non-negotiables” trying to find the next place. “The list was very, very small,” Banghart said. “My decision kind of came to a place like Carolina, will it be available? Am I going to be able to get that job? Or am I going to try a totally different thing? I kind of made up my mind that I wasn’t going to be an Ivy League coach that much longer.”

What happened next, Banghart will never forget. “I actually stepped down on a Thursday night, very, very late,” she recalled. “I got a call from (North Carolina athletic director) Bubba Cunningham Friday morning. Everything moved very quickly there.”

Then it became easier. “Because I had wrapped my head around the fact that there was going to be another challenge, I think that allowed some of the really hard things that come with moving and relocating your family to become less hard,” she said. “I knew there was going to be something else.”

New Hampshire native Courtney Banghart has been a women’s college head basketball coach since 2007, the last four years at the University of North Carolina. [Photo courtesy of UNC Athletic Communications]

Something else that was, indeed, a huge challenge. Banghart was taking over a North Carolina program with a rich tradition that had soured. The Tar Heels had won the 1994 NCAA national championship and been to the Final Four in 2006 and 2007 under Hall of Fame coach Sylvia Hatchell. But the recent history with Hatchell had regrettably deteriorated. There had been three consecutive losing seasons and then an 18-15 record in 2018-19 in which Hatchell ended up resigning under a cloud highlighted by accusations of racially insensitive remarks and forcing players to play while injured. Hatchell resigned on April 19, 2019. Banghart was officially hired before the end of the month on April 30.

In her first year, without the benefit of a recruiting season, Banghart came in and guided the team to a 16-14 record. That included a season-ending eight-game losing streak in a year that was canceled on the eve of the national tournament due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Covid affected her second year, as well, reducing the schedule to 22 games. The Heels went 13-11 overall, losing in both the first round of the ACC and NCAA tournaments. 

“It was really, really hard,” said Banghart coaching in those first two years, especially the second Covid season. “I’m very positive by nature. Looking back it was really hard. There were plenty of days I would ask myself ‘how long am I going to do this? What value is this?’”

She added: “Because you left something that you built fully functioning and you had to rebuild something that wasn’t fully functioning and needed a lot of changes. That is hard because that is peoples’ lives that you’re impacting. Of course, the league is really strong. Everything in this business is really finicky. If you don’t get a great class your first year, how do you get one your second year? You’re kind of wearing that all the time. It has to go well and it has to go well immediately. That’s stressful and hard.”

Banghart recalls at some point sitting in her car in her driveway and having a heart to heart with herself. “I’ve got to stop wanting to end here,” she told herself. “This isn’t helping anything. I’ve got to stop. You either finish what you started or if you don’t like it, do something else. I was at that point where I didn’t know if I liked doing this.”

Then it hit her that she had to cease asking for it to be easier. “You knew this was going to be hard,” she recalled telling herself. “That’s actually why you left Princeton. You wanted a new challenge. So now you ask your players every day to embrace challenges, and you’re disappointed that this is such a challenge. Stop. I was telling myself to grow up and see what it actually looks like.”

Her mind-set got better. That first class had arrived, so there was a talent influx. Some of the people who were there before moved on. “The people situation started to clean out and clean up,” Banghart said. “That was very helpful.”

The worm turned last year. UNC went 25-7 overall, winning two NCAA Tournament games before falling to eventual national champion South Carolina by eight points in the Sweet 16. The Heels were ranked 17th in the final AP poll.

This year, led by Banghart’s first recruiting class – now juniors – consisting of Deja Kelly, Anya Poole, Alyssa Ustby and Kennedy Todd-Williams, the Tar Heels are again nationally ranked.  “For a small-town New Hampshire kid, I won’t get tired of recognizing how hard that is,” Banghart said of being nationally ranked. “It’s hard to win at any level. We started the ACC season 0-3, but we also played three really good teams. We either had a small lead or it was tied or so in the fourth quarter. Those were all possession games. In coaching if you hang on every result defining you, you’re going to miss out on the journey. I felt the same then as I do now, I have a really good team. We just have to continue to get better, stay the course and you have to get some lucky breaks to get to a Final Four. We’re building to that, that we have a legitimate opportunity to do that every year with the talent we’ve been able to amass.”

It’s been a journey with this particular squad. “This team has matured, “ Banghart said. “At the time, I wished it had matured a little bit earlier. It wasn’t the organic nature of this group. We sort of had to go through some vulnerabilities. So far we’re doing pretty good.”

After some dark days, North Carolina and Banghart find themselves in a better basketball place that still has plenty of upside. “It’s been the sport that I watched and loved,” she said. “It’s really worked out.”

Banghart laughs because she often refers to herself as the “most expensively educated coach in the country.” But she adds on a more serious note, “had I not been given that (Dartmouth) opportunity – my parents had to take on some significant loans – I would have played soccer. That would have been fine, too.”

Fine, but clearly not the same.

For comments or a story idea, email whaleym25@gmail.com

NHIAA to the NBA: O’Connor embraces NBA coaching life

By Mike Whaley

Brendan O’Connor always had a feeling that basketball would be his career path. He just never expected it to lead to the professional ranks.

The New Hampshire native is in his 10th season as an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Clippers – an odyssey that started in New England and, for now, has him in a good place on the West Coast.

O’Connor has been in the NBA since 2000, which includes stops with the Detroit Pistons, New York Knicks, Sacramento Kings, Charlotte Hornets, Brooklyn Nets and the Clippers. He was part of the staff when the Pistons won the 2004 NBA championship.

“To be honest, to start, I was probably thinking I wanted to be a college coach,” O’Connor said. “But then I got into the pro game right out of college and I’ve been doing it ever since.”

Brendan O’Connor’s dad, John “Jack” O’Connor, left, was the first basketball coach at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Dover. Jack is pictured with his captains circa the early 1960s. [Photo courtesy of Brendan O’Connor]

O’Connor grew up in Manchester and Gilford the son of a former high school basketball coach. John “Jack” O’Connor coached in the late 1950s and early 1960s at St. Patrick’s in Berlin, New Boston High School and St. Thomas Aquinas HS in Dover where he was a founding member of the faculty while coaching basketball, golf and track. He died in 2020.

“He was a basketball guy,” O’Connor said. “I have three older brothers who were basketball players. I had a love for the game. I kind of knew that was the road I wanted to take.”

O’Connor’s family moved to Gilford when he was 12 where he starred on teams at Gilford High School. He led the Golden Eagles to the 1989 Class M championship game, the 1990 semifinals, and was selected to play in the Alhambra Game – the annual contest that pitted New Hampshire’s top senior players against those from Vermont. It was discontinued after the 2016 games.

He spent a year at prep school with the idea to play in college, but that never panned out. He enrolled at Saint Anselm College in Manchester. “I really wasn’t that good, to be honest,” O’Connor said. “I got hurt. It was the end of my career.”

One door closed and another opened.

Because the O’Connors had roots in Manchester – three of O’Connor’s siblings attended Trinity HS – they knew a lot of people. Pat O’Neil hired him to coach the Trinity freshman team with his cousin.

O’Connor did that for one full season and part of another. He graduated from Saint Anselm in December of 1995 with the thought he would finish out the second Trinity season and then maybe find a college position.

New Hampshire-native Brendan O’Connor always knew he wanted to make basketball his life. Since 2000, he has worked in the NBA as an assistant coach and advance scout. [Courtesy photo]

A TASTE OF THE PROS

That changed when – sight unseen – he got in contact over the phone with the Florida Sharks of the United States Basketball League (USBL). The head coach was Eric Mussleman. They hired him, gave him some housing, and had him come down to help out.

“That was my big break,” O’Connor said. “Pat O’Neil gave me my first one.”

Well, the Sharks were a summer league team, so when O’Connor arrived in January, Musselman directed him to recruit players in the old Continental Basketball League (CBA), essentially what the G-League is today.

Musselman would send O’Connor to a city where he knew there were players he wanted to recruit, and get their hotel phone number. “I’d call their room until I got an answer and see if they were interested,” he said. “And if they were, I’d get their number and their agent’s number. So it was really recruiting more than anything else. But we ended up getting some good players.”

Musselman elevated O’Connor from intern to assistant coach before the USBL season, making it clear that he could only hire one assistant, which he already had. But he needed a second assistant on the bench to do some of the charting.

O’Connor was in.

“He and I worked well together,” O’Connor said. “He was a huge part of me doing what I’m doing today.”

The Sharks won the USBL championship during the summer of 1995 and again in 1996. After that 1995 USBL season, Musselman recruited O’Connor to join his CBA staff with the Rapid City Thrillers. “I was the second assistant,” O’Connor said. “Same rule. Not a lot of money. They gave me a place to live and a car. By the end of the season I was his top assistant.”

Musselman ended up getting an NBA job in 1998. O’Connor moved on to another CBA team, also in Grand Rapids, with player/coach Mark Hughes. Hughes had played briefly for Musselman with the Sharks. “He didn’t play for us for long, but we developed a great relationship.” O’Connor said.

O’Connor was an assistant, but when Hughes was on the court as a player, O’Connor became the head coach. “That was a great experience for me,” he said.

O’Connor was set to return for a second year, but the CBA was purchased by former NBA star Isaiah Thomas. He decided to take a job for one year in another league – the International Basketball League – with a team in Richmond, Va.

THE NEXT STEP IS THE NBA

Through his relationship with Hughes, O’Connor met Joe Dumars, who became the president of basketball operations with the Detroit Pistons in 2000.

That led to his next breakthrough, joining the NBA.

O’Connor remembers it well. He was on his honeymoon with his wife, Marlene, on a cruise along Alaska’s Inside Passage.

It was the early days of cell phones, and his was “the size of my car,” O’Connor recalled. He got a call from Dumars, but the reception wasn’t good. He needed to use a pay phone to call Dumars back.

Dumars wanted O’Connor as an advance scout. “I was like ‘I’ll come right now,’” he said. “He said, ‘No rush. Take your time.” It was the end of June. Dumars told O’Connor just to give him a call when he returned home.

O’Connor was living in Massachusetts at the time. When he got home, he called Dumars who put him in touch with somebody else to help him get set up when he got to Detroit.

He flew out on July 4 and was to meet with Dumars the next day. O’Connor woke up that morning in a hotel in Detroit. The stunning headline in the newspaper announced that Detroit’s big star, Grant Hill, had signed with the Orlando Magic.

“I ended up sitting there for about three days without talking to anybody,” O’Connor said. “They were too busy; caught off guard with that one. They were shocked that it was happening. They needed a few days to get everything figured out about what they were going to do.”

Brendan O’Connor, right, is pictured with some members of his immediate family in 2004 with the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy after the Detroit Pistons won the 2004 NBA championship. Also pictured are Brendan’s dad, Jack; brother, Michael; mom, Eileen, and wife, Marlene. [Photo courtesy of Brendan O’Connor]

Believe it or not, O’Connor’s first morning in Detroit was the beginning of the Pistons’ NBA championship build. Hill’s departure actually worked out in Detroit’s favor. They got two players from the Magic – most notably Ben Wallace, who went on to become the NBA’s top defensive player of that era and one of its best rebounders.

In addition, injuries limited Hill to 47 games over the next four years.

“Part of the trade was Ben Wallace. That’s what started it,” O’Connor said. “It was a rough year the first year. It just kept building from there.”

Over the next couple years the championship team took shape. In 2001, Tayshaun Prince and Mehmet Okur were selected in the first two rounds of the NBA draft, and Corliss Williamson was added in a trade; in 2002, free agent Chauncey Billups was signed and Richard Hamilton came to Detroit in a trade for Jerry Stackhouse; in 2003, Lindsey Hunter was reacquired in a trade, and then in February of 2004 the final piece was added – Rasheed Wallace.

By that time, Detroit was on its third coach – Larry Brown. George Irvine had been there for O’Connor’s first year. He was replaced over the next two years by Rick Carlisle, and then Brown was brought in.

“It was a slow process,” O’Connor said. “But when you look back on it, it was pretty quick after that devastating first day.”

As an advance scout, O’Connor was on the road a lot, although by the time Brown took over, he was around the team a little more because Brown wanted that.

“I was in charge of the scouting report for every game,” O’Connor said. “I would send it to the assistant coaches and have conversations with them about our game plan. It was an incredible way to learn the league because you’re on a plane every day when you’re not with the team. You’re going to see teams play and you’re seeing a lot of NBA games each week.”

In 2004, Detroit entered the playoffs as the number three seed in the Eastern Conference. Their road to the NBA finals featured series wins over the Milwaukee Bucks (4-1), New Jersey Nets (4-3), and Indiana Pacers (4-2). In the NBA championship they rolled past the LA Lakers in five games.

“They set all kinds of (defensive) records,” O’Connor said of that team. “It’s a little bit different today. We had a lot of guys with that defensive mindset. At the end of the day it was all about winning.”

O’Connor has had debates with people over the years who claimed the Pistons didn’t have a star. “I thought we had five-plus stars,” he said. “I’d put Chauncey, Rick, Tayshaun, Ben and Rasheed against anyone. They might not be the guys to get 30 (points) every night. But on a given night anyone of them could.

“They all guarded their position and helped each other out,” added O’Connor, while also pointing to the key contributions of Hunter, Okur and Williamson off the bench.

The following year was another banner season, although they were unable to repeat, losing in the NBA finals in seven games to the San Antonio Spurs.

Brown left after that season, taking O’Connor with him to join his staff with the New York Knicks. It was his bounce-around time. Brown lasted one year in New York, so O’Connor joined Musselman in Sacramento for a season, and then back with Brown for several years in Charlotte, and then to Brooklyn with P.J. Carlesimo.

Brendan O’Connor, right, was hired by the LA Clippers by then head coach Doc Rivers in 2013. This is his 10th season with the franchise. [Photo courtesy of Brendan O’Connor]

In 2013, Doc Rivers hired him as an assistant with the LA Clippers and he’s been there ever since. Again, it was a case of building relationships. O’Connor recalls working with Mark Hughes in Grand Rapids in the CBA. Hughes and Rivers had the same agent when they played.

Rivers had retired as a player in 1996. He was doing some TV announcing in 1996-97, but he knew he wanted to get into coaching. He was going to do a second year with TV, but the NBA lockout ended that.

“We’re playing in the CBA, so he came and spent a month with us,” O’Connor said. “He was on the bus with us – six-hour rides. Great guy, great to be around. He and I were the two assistant coaches. We obviously developed a relationship.”

When Rivers was with the Celtics, he wanted O’Connor to join his staff, but it never quite worked out.

That changed, of course, when Rivers got the Clippers job. “He was trying to put a staff together,” O’Connor said. “He called me to see if I’d be interested. Of course, I was interested. It worked out.”

Like his first year with the Pistons, there was more craziness his first year in LA. At the time, the Clippers were owned by Donald Sterling, who was viewed as one of the worst owners in all of professional sports. In the midst of LA’s first-round series with the Golden State Warriors, a racist recording was released between Sterling and his mistress that referenced NBA Hall of Famer Magic Johnson.

“It is something I will never forget,” O’Connor said. The team was in San Francisco for Game 4 of the series. He recalls coming down to have breakfast at the hotel, and there was Rivers all by himself in this big banquet room. 

“He said ‘you’re not going to believe this,’” O’Connor recalled. “He told me the whole story.”

The story had not broken yet, but it would shortly. Rivers called the team together, told them without providing details. “It’s not going to be good,” Rivers said. “We’ve got to stick together.”

After a day of practice it came out that night around 10, remembered O’Connor. The team was leaving practice at the University of San Francisco for the bus ride back to the hotel. The media presence was suffocating. ABC, NBC and CNN were there with their big network trucks, in addition to waves of print and radio reporters. “It was nuts,” O’Connor said. “I’d never seen anything like it.”

The Clippers briefly considered boycotting Game 4, instead deciding to wear their team jerseys inside out to obscure the team logo during the pregame huddle.

When the Clippers got back to LA, the series even at 2-2, their general manager announced to them that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver had issued Sterling a life-time ban from the league.

Brendan O’Connor, left, celebrates a big playoff win in 2019 over the Golden State Warriors with JaMychal Green. [Photo courtesy of Brendan O’Connor]

The Clippers ended up winning the series, 4-3, but lost in the next round to Oklahoma City.

The silver lining, in O’Connor’s mind, was that the new owner, Steve Ballmer, was what the Clippers needed. “It was like winning the lottery, to be honest,” O’Connor said. “We didn’t know it at the time. Then Steve Ballmer took over. Talk about a good change at the top. That’s about as good as it gets.”

LA has had success, too, after many years as one of the NBA’s worst franchises. They’ve been to the playoffs nine times since 2011, including the conference finals in 2021.

Rivers was fired in 2020, and Tyronn Lue took over as head coach. O’Connor had worked with Lue during his first year with the Clippers in 2013-14. “He was running the defense for Doc that year,” O’Connor said. “I worked really closely with him.” 

Lue left for Cleveland for four years, winning an NBA championship in 2016 as the head coach after taking over at midseason. He was fired in 2018, worked informally with the Clippers for the remainder of the 2018-19 season, and then was hired as the lead assistant in 2019-20.

“If I had not met him, I probably would not still be here now,” O’Connor said.

Lue’s first year proved to be the best in franchise history. The Clippers advanced all the way to the conference finals, losing to the Phoenix Suns in six games. Last year they went 42-20 and missed the playoffs.

CLIPPERS EYE A PLAYOFF RUN

The Clippers are currently 31-26 and fourth in the Western Conference standings through Tuesday. They have won eight of their last 10 games. “We’ve had to battle through injuries with guys being in and out of the lineup,” O’Connor said. “Hopefully we can keep moving in the direction we are and have a chance to win at the end. We’ve got plenty of time left.”

LA is led by veteran all-stars Paul George and Kawhi Leonard.

These days, O’Connor’s job is working mostly with the defense. “It’s not like football where there’s an offensive coordinator and a defensive coordinator,” he said. “I do a lot of the defensive stuff. Tyronn does the offense. I’ll throw some ideas on the offensive side, but I mostly work on the defense.”

Brendan O’Connor’s sons, Desmond and Emmet, are pictured with NBA legend Jerry West, who works with the Clippers as a consultant. [Photo courtesy of Brendan O’Connor]

O’Connor lives with Marlene and their three sons just outside of LA in Manhattan Beach.

Being a head coach has crossed O’Connor’s mind. “I’ve had a few opportunities to leave with positions that might lead to that,” he said. “If you’re in this business you would like to run your own team.”

O’Connor, however, likes where he is. There is great ownership, Lue is an amazing head coach to work with. There’s plenty of upside. “It would have to be a really good situation for me to leave here,” he said. “It would be great to do all the things you want to try. But I love the position I am in right now.”

The subject of 2004 comes around again, and O’Connor says it seems like yesterday. “You look at the calendar. It isn’t,” he said. “I’m like, holy cow, next season will be 20 years.”

He feels that championship opportunity might come again with this current LA team, which some say is the deepest squad in the NBA (seven players averaging in double figures). “Having the group we have and having a chance to win a championship is really at the end of the day what it’s all about,” O’Connor said. “It was a special year – 2004. I’d love to experience that again.”

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