Kevin Broadus readily admits he did not take the traditional route to coaching, which usually is from active player to the sidelines.
“I didn’t go to college to be a coach,” stressed the sixth-year Morgan State head men’s basketball coach. During a postseason chat with him after his Bears played Minnesota on Dec. 29 — a 90-68 defeat in the final non-conference matchup for both squads before fully entering their respective league play — Broadus briefly took us on a tour of his journey, which began as a native of the Washington, D.C. suburbs.
Broadus played high school ball at the famed Dunbar High School, where Carter G. Woodson once was on the faculty. The late Reggie Lewis, Muggsy Bogues, Reggie Williams, and David Wingate also played on the same hardwood before going on to college and the NBA. Broadus began his collegiate career at Grambling State but redshirted there his freshman year, then transferred to Bowie State, where he lettered three years and got his business administration degree in 1990.
“My wife and I went into business,” continued Broadus. But soon his love of the game and wanting to work with young people, especially Black males, was too much of a lure to avoid.
“I love the game. I love people,” he pointed out.
As a result, Broadus began his now-almost-30 year coaching journey when he returned to Bowie State as an assistant coach until 1993. Then he moved to the University of the District of Columbia, where he earned a master’s in counseling (1996) while an assistant coach.
Then Broadus had coaching stints at American University (1998-2001), George Washington (2001), Maryland (2017-19) and two separate stints at Georgetown (2004-07; 2011-17), where he got to work with John Thompson III and spend time with his father, the late John Thompson.
At Georgetown, Broadus said, he often listened to the elder Thompson. “I remember Big John said to me, ‘Boy, I don’t think you want to be a head coach.’ I said, ‘Coach, I watched you a long time, and I wanted to be like you.’”
So when a head coaching opportunity did materialize at Binghamton, an upstate New York school, Broadus took it. He was head coach there for two seasons (2007-09), winning both a regular season and conference title in the same year that he won the 2009 America East Coach of the Year.
After a two-year hiatus, Broadus returned to Georgetown, then went to Maryland before Morgan State offered him his second HC opportunity in 2019.
Broadus rightly earned his reputation as a top-notch recruiter, a historic tag often placed on Black coaches rather than highlight their on-court coaching acumen in game situations. He has also shown that he can indeed lead a club. He led the Bears to the MEAC Tournament championship game in 2021, a couple of years after his arrival. In 2021-22 the school reached the league semifinals.
Asked to comment about him and Minnesota’s Ben Johnson, two Black head coaches in action at a game that was attended by many young Black people, Broadus said, “Yeah, it’s important. … I played for two Black coaches. They have similar backgrounds as most of these kids that are playing [today]. It’s good to have Black coaches mentoring them, not just coaching them [but] mentoring them to the next level of life, and that’s the main thing because in basketball the average [playing] lifespan is three to five years.
“You got to take the shorts off, put on long pants, and be productive in life, save your money, make a lot of money, whatever,” surmised Broadus. “That’s my job, to prepare them to be ready for this cosmopolitan world, prepare them for what’s ahead.
“I’ve been through it,” concluded the Morgan State coach. “I’m just making sure they know the importance that we [as Black people] got to be better — 2, 3, 5, 10 times better than those others that we’re competing against in life. I learned from Big John that hard work don’t guarantee you’ll be successful. It just gives you a better chance.
“You’d rather have a better chance than no chance at all.”
Charles Hallman welcomes reader comments to challman@spokesman-recorder.com.