The Sudbury Five have narrowed their head coach search down and have found the one.
Sudbury’s new professional basketball team had everybody talking when they unveiled their name and brand in May, but that was just a first step in a long journey to get the team ready to compete in the upcoming National Basketball League of Canada season.
The next step was to name a head coach.
Vice President of Basketball Operations Bob Johnston had originally said they wanted to make a decision in June, however the process took a little bit longer than anticipated.
That said, the team has found its coach.
“I can tell you the search is complete, we have issued a contract to the individual and the contract has to go to the league for 10 days to be approved and ratified. He will be here in Sudbury, reporting July 30th,” said Johnston.
Johnston said they will hold a press conference on Aug. 8 to unveil their choice.
While he couldn’t reveal the name, he did go into great detail about the new coach, who will likely also become the team’s general manager.
Johnston said it was someone very familiar with the league.
“He is from the (United) States, Kansas City. He’s very well known in the National Basketball League of Canada, he’s played for a number of teams, highly respected character individual,” Johnston said. “I don’t want to let out too much information what I can say is he is a quality individual, his personal qualities and characteristics really set him apart from some of the other candidates.”
The reason it took so long was the number of qualified candidates they had to go through.
“We spent a good two months vetting a number of candidates, and we had a very high level of interest from coaches internationally actually. We really took our time to go through a very rigorous process of interviews and submissions,” said Johnston. “We had some candidates with experience in NCAA Division 1, even NBA player development and scouting experience.
“We had coaches that applied that have coached in eight different countries in the world. We had a lot of qualified people and quite frankly it was razor thin once we got down to the final five. I think we had five tremendous candidates that any one of them would have done an exceptional job. They all have differences but I think the young gentlemen that we picked is going to be able to grow with our franchise and do something special with our team.”
One big factor was having an impact on the community and Johnston said they were pleased with how many candidates wanted to grow in Sudbury, including the chosen coach.
“He’s a young man, he is married, he has two young children and one of his children was born in Canada. He is from the States, but he says one of his goals is to settle in,” Johnston said. “He loves Canada and he wants to settle in Sudbury and have his children grow up here and he wants to be a part of the community.
“I think that’s very important to have a family person who wants to stay here long term and develop relations in the community.”
Johnston said they laid out a job description with three main criteria: the core basketball element being top of the list, alongside being active in the community and participating in the Northern Academy, a partnership that will hold basketball camps and coaching clinics throughout the year.
The team and the players are going to be very involved in the business.
“I think it’s absolutely essential for our success, many teams might go the route and just say we’re hiring a coach as a coach and we want 100-per-cent focus just on the Xs and Os on coaching a team. We felt it was more than that, so we wanted to make sure anyone that was applying for the coaching position fully understood the all responsibilities of the mandate,” said Johnston.
He added the new head coach will have input on filling out the assistant coaching positions, but one will be a coach with experience from the Greater Sudbury area and they already have a number of candidates in mind.
Sudbury.com will have a follow up story on timelines for getting players in place including some possible local talent.
Nick Liard covers the Sudbury Wolves and SW Sports and Entertainment for Sudbury.com.
