DUTY CALLS: Former OUHS boys basketball coach comes out retirement for 1 final season
Sometimes you gotta step up — not because its convenient or necessarily exciting, but because it seems the right thing to do.
That’s Brad Hall’s attitude as he picks up again the reins of the Oklahoma Union High boys basketball team.
Hall has been a familiar figure quietly stalking the Cougar sidelines for the lion’s share of the past 30 years.
But, following this past season, he thought he was done with coaching altogether after resigning as a basketball assistant to Lee Ott and as a baseball assistant.
But, then Ott received an offer to tough to refuse to return as a head coach to his alma mater Claremore-Sequoyah High, prompting his departure a couple of months ago.
“I’m the athletic director, too, and we looked to hire a (basketball) coach and we had quite a few applicants,” Hall said. “We were looking for someone to keep the program going at a high level. We offered the job to three different guys and they turned it down.”
A major impediment to becoming the next Cougar coach will be the giant specter of expectations vs. the tiny reserve of proven experience.
Two campaigns ago (2020-21) Ott navigated the Cougars to the Class 2A state championship — but then graduated seven seniors, including the team’s Big Two of Jace Hollingshed and Nathan Collier.
Despite returning just one primary starter for the 2021-22 season, Ott proved to be a magic man, binding together the remaining talent and desire to make another run that ended with a return to the state tournament.
But, the team lost another seven seniors in last month’s graduation, including the two-leading scorers, Kade Hollingshed and Jaiden Kennard.
The short of it is this — the Cougars have precious little proven skill on the varsity level on which to build next year’s mix.
With that being the case, Hall thought it might almost be unfair to bring in a fresh coach — especially with the Cougars being a prime target for every team they’ll face.
“I really didn’t want to put them in a bad position starting the job now,” he said.
Hall has chosen to do the heavy rebuilding work this season and turn the team over to somebody for the following year.
Either way, this season definitely will be his last, he added.
“I’m doing it to get the guys ready,” he said.
After this coming campaign, he looks forward to just teach and fulfilling his athletic director facilities.
His most experienced player coming back is Kaide Hill.
“The rest of them didn’t get to play many minutes,” he said. “We’ll have four seniors including one of the boys who tore his ACL in football and didn’t play. He just started playing basketball (recently).”
Hall said summer ball “has been a struggle” as the Cougars confront their weaknesses.
For Hall, even though he looked forward to retirement, it just made sense for him to do the job.
He served as head coach throughout the 1990s, the first decade of the 2000s and up until near the mid-2010s before stepping away and Ott taking his place.
Hall has assisted Ott the past few seasons.
That’s a plus in the circumstances, in terms of continuity of system.
“We’re doing the same ting we’ve been doing, we’re jot just doing it as good,” Hall said. “I hope everybody will be patient with us. We’re going to try to do what we’ve been doing offensively and defensively. That’s kind of what I was looking for.”
Hall said his only coaching duties this coming school year will be basketball. He said information that he also was going to coach baseball was incorrect.
The school has hired Craig Wheat as the new softball coach and Dale Wicks to guide baseball. Both have been assistant coaches at the school.
This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: Focus on coaching change in Oklahoma Union basketball
