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Thu, Feb 2, 2012 @ Radford

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McKinley

36

Radford

41

Final	1	2	3	4
McKinley (8-7, 9-9)	6	10	10	10	36
Radford (6-4, 13-7)	12	8	13	8	41

I. Wimbush 15 pts

S. Coryell 10 pts  2 3pm

Brandy Richardson knows that you only have one chance to make a first impression. And she remembers, quite vividly, trying to make a favorable one nearly 10 years ago.

It was March of 2011 and Richardson, one of the state's all-time greats on the basketball court during her prep days at Kalaheo, was newly hired to lead the Radford girls varsity team — which just so happened to be coming off of a Division II state championship just one month prior.

For Richardson — just a handful of years removed from her own playing days and still in her mid-20's — it was her first head coaching job.

"Ten years ago," Richardson began reflecting, "when I think back to that particular season, that team came off of a state championship, a D2 state championship under a different coach, Tani Dutro, and then I took over the program the following year, so obviously with change there's going to be hardships, so I remember opening that season and getting to know the team."

So Richardson opted for the route to any teenager's heart.

Their stomachs.

"Our first meeting wasn't even a practice, it was a pizza party to introduce myself to the girls," said Richardson, then a physical education teacher at the school.

You could say there was some initial hesitation on the part of the players.

"They were familiar with who I was because I was a teacher on campus and I was coaching the JV boys and I can remember them walking into my room and they weren't happy, and rightfully so. They didn't have the same coach, but they didn't make it easy. They weren't as welcoming. I mean, they're teenagers and I know my coach from high school was important to me, so I understood that," Richardson said.

When she played at Kalaheo, Richardson was coached by now-Maryknoll coach Chico Furtado throughout her career. The pair led the Mustangs to four Oahu Interscholastic Association championships and a pair of state runner-up finishes together, so she was certainly empathetic of her players and the sudden change they were faced with.

"It was a big change for them, especially coming off a successful season and ‘now you're telling me you're the new coach? Trying to tell us what to do?' So we definitely started with the relationship part," Richardson chuckled. "For me the most important part was being able to connect with a team that already had a solid foundation in place and being able to fill the shoes with my own little twist in philosophy with basketball, but when I think back to that I think of just the getting to know each other and being able to meet my girls in the middle with everything that they've accomplished prior to myself as a coach."

Richardson's own prep career was one of the most decorated in state history. She was selected as Gatorade State Player of the Year three times and was key to Kalaheo amassing a 48-0 league record during her four-year career. After being inducted into the HHSAA Hall of Honor in 2001, she went on to an impressive collegiate career at UC Santa Barbara, where she was twice an All-Big West honorable mention. As a senior she was tabbed as conference Defensive Player of the Year.

After she returned to Hawaii Richardson was hired to teach P.E. at Radford, but it would not be where she initially began coaching.

"I was an assistant coach at Moanalua when I first came back to the islands, so it was something that it just worked out where there was an opportunity to coach and I was at Moanalua," said Richardson, who spent one season as an varsity assistant to Kristie Morikawa with Na Menehune girls.

Then she spent three years as JV assistant at Radford under Wayne Keys before the varsity girls' position opened up when Dutro stepped down. At the time, however, there were several other head coach positions that were open, including two of the premier programs in the state in Interscholastic League of Honolulu powers Kamehameha and Punahou.

But Richardson never felt compelled to apply for either job, despite getting a lot of encouragement from friends and acquaintances to do so. Instead, she felt like a certain amount of sentimentality toward Radford.

"I guess you could say loyalty," said Richardson, who was hired as a full-time teacher by then-principal Robert Stevens at just 25 years of age.

"Radford gave me a chance to continue my career. I had just moved home from college and was three years removed from playing collegiate basketball, but they took a chance on me and there were opportunities that came along after that … but just something felt right about staying at a school that took a chance on me and being able to give back to the students there, being able to support the faculty there, so yeah, that's why I didn't even apply for the Kamehameha job at the time. There were a couple openings (elsewhere), but my heart was with Radford at the time," she stated.

So it was with great excitement that Richardson had planned to meet her players  that day, but despite the cold welcome she received, she knew that it was only day one in a long journey and that as far as her players were concerned, her actions would speak louder than her words.

"I got to know the girls and I think the biggest thing is early on I understood the importance of building a relationship with your players and I mention that because what that helps do is everything within when I'm hard on them, it comes from a good place," Richardson explained.

That would be needed as Richardson made no qualms about pushing her players out of their comfort zones.

"Those that have coached and been around athletics, we spend a lot of time with our players and the way I ran our program at Radford is it wasn't just a season. We didn't just show up during tryouts in November," she said.

Among those that Richardson had high expectations of was incoming Waianae-transfer Brittany Perry, a 5-foot-9 senior.

"I rode Brittany. I rode Brittany all season," Richardson said matter-of-factly. "I was like, ‘You can't just be a shooting guard. You have to be able to take the ball to the hole.' I remember just clearly being on her, even so much so that I had to talk to her parents, like, ‘This is coming from a good place. I see so much potential in your daughter,' but Brittany is a 5-9 guard and there was no reason that she couldn't play with her back to the basket, there was no reason that she couldn't take the ball into the hole strong because she was comfortable settling for a jumpshot, even if it wasn't falling."

The Rams took their jumps early on during an arduous preseason schedule that Richardson had put together. They did manage to reach the title game of the Saint Francis Ladies' Classic, where they Richardson and the Rams met Furtado and the Spartans, but the mentor got the better of the protege in a 33-24 Maryknoll win.

"They taught us some really good lessons," Richardson said. "We took cracks that preseason, but they were a team that came off of a D2 championship and the goals that we sat and created together as a program were to win OIA and then repeat as state champions at the D2 level, but then I challenged the girls and I asked them if they thought it was reasonable to get out of D2 and play at the Division I level."

It was because her players had committed to that long-term goal that Richardson signed them up for the tough slate of non-conference opponents.

"I front-loaded the schedule just to see where we stood because one of their goals was to move to Division I and I'm a firm believer as a former player, as every coach is, that if you want to be the best, you have to play the best, so it was definitely very methodical being able to schedule and play against those powerhouse teams early on," she explained.

But Richardson's team was slowly coming around after a 1-3 start to the OIA West regular season. Those losses, however, were to Division-I teams Pearl City (39-34), Leilehua (32-31, OT) and Mililani (57-36). In fact, they went on to win eight of their final nine games in league play to finish with a 9-4 mark in the OIA.

"I think it was a slow, gradual improvement with them getting to know my coaching style and me understanding their type of play and where they come from. There was never a game like, ‘Ah ha! They got it,' but I think over time, with instilling the habits of small things — like taking care of the ball — they gradually came around," Richardson said.

In lieu of the current 12-team format that the OIA utilizes for most of its postseason tournaments, a modified double-elimination format was in use that season. Radford was on the losing end of its final regular season game (38-23, at Kapolei), but took care of business against Kalani in its playoff opener, 38-29.

That win over the Falcons left the Rams to face McKinley, which was also unbeaten in the OIA tournament. Richardson's team escaped with a 51-48 win over the Tigers behind junior Imani Wimbush's season-high 19 points.

However, McKinley set-up a rematch with Radford by virtue of its 46-38 win over Kalani to eliminate the Falcons from championship contention. The Tigers had to beat the Rams twice to dethrone the defending champs, but would have to do it at Radford's home court at Jim Alegre Gymnasium.

Richardson's team was up to the task, however — even with its' best player dealing with foul trouble.

"We depended on her a lot, but she got into foul trouble that game and she sat on the bench in the second half for quite some time," Richardson recalled.

Radford led 12-6 after the opening quarter and 20-16 at the half. It opened the second half on an 8-0 run to stretch it to a 12-point lead. With Wimbush on the bench for much of the final two quarters, Perry stepped up her play in the post — much to the delight of Richardson — and finished with a double-double of 10 points and 12 rebounds.

"She came up big during that game and everything that we had been working with her on all season, I think came to light in that game for her," Richardson said. "It was a big confidence booster for her."

McKinley chipped away and eventually pulled to within four points of the Rams at 38-34 on Tiare Sugui's layup with 1:27 left to play. However, it was the free-throw line that Radford sealed the victory, as junior Korie Johnson made three of four from the charity stripe down the stretch — despite the fact that Radford was just 6 of 14 on free throws for the game.

"During practice I would add pressure to their free throws by saying they had to hit 75 percent of their free throws, if not we're running, we're conditioning, so there were elements within the game where every free throw counts and even though we went six of 14, down the stretch she stepped up and hit the free throws when they most mattered and when the pressure was even greater, so Korie Johnson was a great player and great kid," Richardson said.

Johnson finished with seven points, as did Rachel Kapesi, who made her team's lone 3-pointer of the contest.

Radford shot 35 percent (17 of 48) from the field, while McKinley was 33 percent (14 of 48) on field goals.

"McKinley was a well-coached team. They brought a lot of energy, they were very disciplined and McKinley traditionally has been very fundamentally-sound. They have their little guards who can handle the basketball and they get up and down the court," Richardson noted.

Wimbush, who went on to play collegiate volleyball at Gonzaga University, still managed to score 15 points and grab a game-high 14 rebounds.

The Rams won the rebounding battle, 43 to 26, but turned it over 20 times against the Tigers' full court press.

"Imani was a leader and someone that I really looked to as a coach to pick-up pieces as a player on the court. She was someone that I also rode all season and I knew that volleyball was her sport, but it came to the point where she already locked up her scholarship to Gonzaga and I was tough on Imani," Richardson said. "I wasn't just tough on her because I wanted her to be the best basketball player, I wanted her to be the best person she could be and I feel like we came into each other's life at the right time."

Richardson shared with Wimbush the demands of being a Division-I student-athlete in college. Several years down the road, the two were reunited in a chance encounter in an airport in Utah.

"I was waiting in the ticket line and I heard, ‘Coach Brandy, is that you?,' and it was Imani with her Gonzaga volleyball team," Richardson said of the serendipitous meeting. "I think for me why that is really rewarding is because it's nice to see the players that you formerly coached be successful and be good human beings and still apprecaite everything that you've done for them and she mentioned that. I checked into my gate, but she came and found me and we talked story. She shared with me all her successes and thanked me for everything I've done."

It was much the same Wimbush that Richardson recalled in that 2012 OIA championship game.

"Where most athletes being the star player, it would be easy to feel sorry for yourself, but Imani wasn't that type of player. She coached the girls from the side, she stayed positive and of course she wanted to be out there, but that was out of her control at that point because we needed her when it counted and she was in foul trouble," Richardson recounted.

Radford held on to beat McKinley in that game by a score of 41-36 to capture their second straight OIA D2 title and their first championship under Richardson.

"I was happy for them. A lot of people don't see the behind-the-scenes work that goes into it and the girls showing up every day to practice, trying to be the best players that they can be, to be the best teammates they can be, but of course, I was happy," Richardson said. "When you walk in and you have a team that was successful from the season before, that adds pressure to you as a coach, so I was definitely relieved, there was a sense of relief to it, but more than anything just happy for the girls that they their hard work paid off."

The Rams drew the top overall seed in the D2 state tournament the following week, but were upended in the quarterfinal round by Hawaii Prep, 48-45. Richardson's team beat Honokaa the following day, 50-42, before falling short against Hanalani in the fifth-place game.

"That team welcomed me into their team and allowed me to be their leader that year, so that was definitely a special team that everything that they earned was well-deserved because of their hard work," Richardson said.

Radford did in fact move up to Division I the following year and the year after that — Richardson's last leading the program — it qualified for the D1 state tournament.

Richardson stepped down as Rams' coach after the 2013-2014 season. She took a year off before embarking on another role on the hardwood, that of referee. She has been a high school official for the past five years and a collegiate official the last four.

As for a possible return to coaching?

"I was waiting for that question," she quipped.

"I think I miss the most being able to connect with young women and being able to mentor them," said Richardson, a mother to two young girls. "Eventually, I think when the time is right I'll get back into coaching."