By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
Brandon McDonnell had a bird's eye view of the amazing turnaround that Rick Bloomquist's Topeka West's boys basketball team has put together in recent seasons.
Now the former Topeka High and Baker University player will try to engineer a similar turnaround in his first head coaching job at Rossville.
McDonnell was introduced Tuesday as the Bulldawgs' new head coach, taking over a team that was just 3-18 this past season but heading to a school that is very well-respected as a small-school athletic power.
Topeka West assistant Brandon McDonnell has been named the new head boys basketball coach at Rossville. [File photo/TSN]
McDonnell, a 2000 Topeka High graduate, has been on Bloomquist's staff for four seasons, serving as a varsity and junior varsity assistant and guiding the Chargers' freshman team the past two seasons.
He gives Bloomquist, who has led West to back-to-back Class 5A state appearances, a great deal of credit for getting him ready to to be a head coach.
"I love Bloom to death and one of the main reasons why is you don't often come across a coach that allows you to be on all three benches,'' said McDonnell, who played 13 seasons with the Harlem Legends. "My game nights consisted of putting puzzle pieces togethers with Dwayne (Anthony) at the JV level, then halfway into the fourth quarter I'd go and get my freshman boys ready and I'd coach that game and get those puzzle pieces together and then after that I'm walking into the pregame of the varsity and I'm helping put those puzzle pieces together. So for me I'm coaching three games in one night and loving every second of it because of the autonomy, I had the freedom to do it.
"There's obviously certain things that (Bloomquist) wanted implemented at the freshman level, but outside of that he actually gave me the program and there's not a lot of coaches that do that. Bloomquist let me coach and that's one of the main reasons why I'm in this position today because he didn't put a leash on me. He let me explore, he let me coach, he let me go through some failures and then work my way out of it and that's the only way that I learned. He made that possible. He's a phenomenal guy. He's a father figure to me and I know I could go to him for anything.''
Not surprisingly, McDonnell went to Bloomquist for advice before applying for and eventually accepting the Rossville position.
"I'm coming from a guy and a system that is a well-oiled machine so for me to leave that I had to have some boxes checked off,'' McDonnell said. "We looked at the players they have coming back, the players they lost, their record and everything we talked about it was on the good side.''
McDonnell was in Rossville Tuesday to meet a lot of the people he'll be working with in his new position and said it was a very positive experience.
"I got to meet my assistant coaches, I got to meet my players today and it was just such a great level of engagement,'' McDonnell said. "The kids are looking you in the eyes, there's great body language and this school out here, they breed nothing but hard-workers, so I'm blessed in that matter.
"Plus they have the community support and I'm think we're going to be OK. I think we're going to start offf on the good foot, implement some things and see if we can get this thing on the right track.''
