By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
Rossville was the first school to give Brandon McDonnell the opportunity to be a head basketball coach and he's cherished his four years there, leading the Bulldawgs to back-to-back Class 2A state tournament berths the past two seasons.
Brandon McDonnell has been selected as Shawnee Heights' new boys basketball coach after leading Rossville to back-to-back Class 2A state berths. [File photo/TSN]
But the chance to move up to the 5A level in his hometown of Topeka was too good to pass up, with McDonnell tapped to replace retiring local legend Ken Darting as Shawnee Heights' new boys coach.
"For your first head coaching job and then to have such a great group of kids, it's obviously hard to leave that,'' McDonnell said about leaving Rossville. "For the four years I've been embraced by our players and it's been a Godsend, so obviously this is not an easy choice by any means, but at the end of the day I always explore opportunity and at this particular moment my name was just kind of out there for this (Shawnee Heights) job.
"When your name's out there, you know there's people that kind of want your leadership and your expertise and your mentorship and you always want to pursue something that you think you'll be a good fit for, so that's what happened here.''
A former Topeka High standout and assistant at Topeka West, McDonnell said it has always been in the back of his mind to someday land a head coaching job in his hometown.
"One hundred percent,'' said McDonnell, who played collegiately at Baker. "Nothing against Rossville, I loved it out there, but it was always a thing for me to come back and coach in the city where I played in, where I grew up.''
McDonnell becomes the third Topeka High grad to accept a head coaching job in the city over the past year, following Robbie Sanders at High and Nate Wallace at Highland Park.
"You love to see, what I'm calling our generation, kind of stepping in and taking over the roles of these head coaching jobs,'' McDonnell said. "It's a phenomenal thing and what's better than to coach our youth and try to better them to be the best version of themselves.''
McDonnell led Rossville to a 17-8 record this past season and takes over a Shawnee Heights program that went 17-9 and advanced to the 5A state tournament for the third straight season.
McDonnell doesn't plan to make wholesale changes at Heights, but just wants to put his stamp on an already well-established program.
"I don't fix it if it's not broke,'' McDonnell said. "I know what we have out there and the expectation doesn't change. We want to go to state and in order for that to happen we have to continue to work hard and be productive and be the best version of ourself and make it back to that particular point because that's the talent that we have.
"I have some shoes to fill, but hopefully stepping in I can still keep that ball rolling on the success they've already had.''
