New women’s basketball coach Brianna Brennan wants her players to have a better experience than she did in college, when she quit playing the sport that she grew up loving.
“Reflecting back on my negative basketball college experience fueled me to want to be better than what I experienced,” Brennan said. “Had I had the great, perfect team atmosphere and all this stuff that I was supposed to have or thought I was going to have, I don’t think I would be as passionate to be doing what I’m doing today.”
Brennan left basketball after three years as a forward for NCAA DII Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania. Less than a decade later, 28 year old Brennan is the head coach of the Hillsdale women’s basketball team.
Prior to becoming head coach last April, she worked with former head coach Charlie Averkamp as lead assistant. In her two seasons in the position, the team won 30 games and appeared in its first G-MAC conference tournament since 2018.
Director of Athletics John Tharp said Brennan was an easy choice for head coach because she would give continuity to the program and build on the culture Averkamp started.
“The thing that I realized quickly is how much she cares about the kids,” Tharp said. “Her office was always open, the student athletes were always in the office. I think they relied on her for a lot of different things.”
Under Brennan, the team has compiled a record of 11-9, including 7-5 in conference play, and is currently in eighth place in the G-MAC. Eight games remain in the regular season, including tonight’s road contest at Walsh University.
A native of Woodhaven, Michigan, Brennan grew up playing basketball with her dad and sisters. In eighth grade, she decided she wanted to play in college.
“I was just so passionate about it, and there had been some other players at our high school that had gone on to play college,” Brennan said. “I just kind of set my mind to it and was not going to let anything stop me.”
After a successful career at Woodhaven High School, Brennan committed to play for Gannon University.
By the time she arrived on campus, however, the coach who recruited her, Cleve Wright, had left the university.
“The new coach they brought in, the culture was not the same,” Brennan said. “We weren’t treated very well and the culture started dropping drastically. After three years, I decided that it wasn’t something that I wanted to be a part of anymore.”
Brennan knew she couldn’t be done with sports, so she went to the volleyball coach at Gannon and asked to walk onto his team.
Coach Matthew Darling said yes.
“That was the first time in my life I’ve ever cried tears of joy,” Brennan said.
As a middle blocker, Brennan appeared in the NCAA tournament in 2016 and 2017 for Gannon, including the team’s first ever NCAA Division II Final Four appearance for volleyball in 2017.
Still, the adjustment from being a starter for the basketball team to hardly seeing court time as a volleyball player was difficult for Brennan as she learned who she was outside of basketball.
In the midst of this struggle, she attended the Ultimate Training Camp, a Christian ministry program for college athletes who want to glorify God through sports.
“During that time, I was asking God some of the hard questions because basketball was my identity,” Brennan said. “And he made it very clear that that was what was wrong. Basketball could not be my identity. My identity has to be found in Him.”
Brennan would let her relationship with Christ guide her through the rest of her journey in athletics and life.
“My mindset was so different,” Brennan said. “My value wasn’t in producing in a sport anymore. I knew I could glorify him no matter what my role was.”
After teaching second and first grade for two years after college, Brennan knew she wanted to go back to basketball, this time as a coach.
“The time away from it was exactly what I needed to get the fire going in me,” Brennan said.
Brennan took a position as a graduate assistant, coaching at Eastern Illinois for two years while she earned her Master of Sports Administration.
The summer after completing her masters in 2019, Brennan was staying at her parents’ home in Michigan and preparing for a job interview when she received a phone call from a friend and fellow coach who put her in touch with Averkamp at Hillsdale.
“Coach Averkamp, who hired me, was like, ‘Could you come tomorrow and interview?’” Brennan said. “So I made it happen.”
Brennan canceled her other interview and headed to Hillsdale. She said she was struck by the culture of the athletic department.
“I could tell just how genuine people were here and how much they cared, not just about athletics but about the students here and the mission,” Brennan said.
By the end of the week, she accepted the position.
Since becoming head coach, Brennan has focused on improving team defense and tells her team to play free and fierce.
Senior Sydney Mills said Brennan has always been the kind of coach you could talk to about anything.
“The team culture of knowing this is more than just basketball has been Brie’s main message,” Mills said. “Being the oldest on the team is a weird dynamic at times because I’m older than all my teammates, and everyone I came in with has already graduated. And coach Brie has done a really good job for me of checking in mentally, which has just meant the world.”
Brennan’s coaching philosophy begins and ends with building relationships.
“Getting to know them as a person, and who they are, and what makes them tick, and what motivates them, and what makes them laugh,” Brennan said. “You’re able to foster a lot of success when you see people first.”