‘He’s like a dad to me.’ Kenny Brooks and Jen Brown reunite across the scorers table.
On Wednesday, March 26, 2008, Jen Brown took the floor for James Madison for the final time.
The forward, a starter and senior captain for the Dukes, and her teammates booked their trip to Lexington after defeating Indiana at Assembly Hall in the second round of the Women’s National Invitation Tournament with a dramatic, 86-81 overtime victory.
Coached by Kenny Brooks in his sixth season at James Madison, Brown was at the tail end of her college playing career; after two seasons at Pittsburgh, she moved across the Colonial Athletic Association to James Madison, and, once she redshirted the 2005-06 season due to NCAA transfer guidelines, got to play in consecutive 20-win seasons and reach the postseason each year.
Ultimately, the Dukes’ 24-10 season would conclude in Memorial Coliseum, and the 17-15 Kentucky Wildcats would advance to the WNIT quarterfinals under first-year coach Matthew Mitchell.
Brown joined Brooks’ coaching staff at James Madison in 2010, and followed him to Virginia Tech in 2016. While in Blacksburg, she served as the Hokies’ associate head coach before earning her first head coaching opportunity with Queens University in 2020.
On Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2024, Brown and Brooks met again at Memorial Coliseum. This time, as opposing head coaches in an 87-45 Kentucky victory during nonconference play of Brooks’ inaugural season coaching the Wildcats, and the third year of Queens’ four-year NCAA reclassification process in moving from Division II to Division I. Toia Giggetts, who graduated from James Madison in 2015 and played under Brooks and Brown, is also an assistant on the Queens coaching staff.
“When you coach as long as I have,” Brooks said. “You have nights like this where it was excitement, it was fun. Going against Jen Brown, my former player, my former assistant coach at James Madison and at Virginia Tech, it was fun. It’s fun to watch, be across from her. At a couple moments, I looked down and, you know, she’s screaming out offenses and whatever, and they were some of our offenses. So, it means that she was listening, but very proud of her, and what she’s able to do to transition. It’s always tough when you’re transitioning from Division II to Division I, but she’s doing a good job with that program.”
Brown noted how enjoyable it was to study film in preparation for the matchup — and how much of Kentucky’s tape looked familiar from her days spent working with Brooks.
“It’s actually fun to watch,” Brown said. “Obviously, because of coach Brooks’ and I’s history, known him since I was 17 years old, so I have a good idea and mindset in a lot of the actions he was running. Like, ‘Oh yeah, we used to run that,’ sort of thing. So it was actually pretty cool to be able to watch some more film. He’s doing a phenomenal job, obviously, here. And just understanding where we felt like we had some advantages or things we can do to try to slow them down a little bit, but that’s an NCAA team. And I think, once he gets back his two kids who are hurt, that’s easily an Elite Eight, Final Four team out there. So really, I love games like this. The comparison, kind of, mentally, physically, for what we’re going to see in the ASUN. So it’s good experience.”
How did the matchup come about? It’s as simple as both programs were in need of a game, and Brown picked up the phone to ask.
“One, he did me a favor,” Brown said. “I needed an extra game for scheduling, and I called him. He recruited me in high school while he was an assistant coach at JMU, and I didn’t go play there. I started at Pitt. And then when he became head coach, I transferred in. So I gave him, like 13 years of my life. I played for him, and he got me my first job. I worked with him. I was an assistant coach with him for ... oh, Lord, long time. Over 10 years, right? Just being under him. So everyone knows he’s a mentor to me. He’s like a dad to me... So when I called him when I needed the game, he happened to need one, as well. He, like he always does, he comes to the rescue.”
Naturally, Brooks isn’t the same coach he was in 2008, or even in 2015. Brown joked that Brooks is “way nicer now,” and that the way he interacts with his players today is quite different from how he did when she or Giggetts suited up for the Dukes.
“I talk about it all the time,” Brown said. “I’m like, ‘Who is this nice, gray-haired old man right now?’ Because it was different, but it was different times as well.”
When asked if he felt he’s “gone soft,” Brooks laughed and agreed that his coaching style has shifted over the years.
“I have gone soft,” Brooks said. “The things I used to do to her and Toia, you can’t do ‘em anymore. There’s too many camera phones, and you just can’t. It’s different, you know, it’s even different than when she was assistant coach for me. It’s different. Not that these kids are soft or anything, but just a different time.”
Though the nature of their relationship has shifted, Brown maintains a close relationship with Brooks and his family and continues to lean on Brooks as a mentor — so much so that she spoke with him ahead of Monday’s game.
“But the one thing that I always say about coach Brooks, he’s a players’ coach, for sure. And whether you played a lot of minutes, played a small role, a big role, when you left him, you were ready for the real world. That’s the one thing I will say about him. All the life lessons he taught me, and I can speak to all my teammates, whether they enjoyed their experience or not, so to speak. He prepared you for the real world. So that’s why you’ve got people like me who’s still coaching in this business right now. Because of him, he helped paved the way for me.
“And even now, to this day, I know I could ... I literally was talking to him yesterday,” Brown said. “And he don’t do that with everybody, but knowing that I have someone I can call whenever I need anything, whether it’s basketball, life or in general, he’s always been there for me. Him and his wife, Chrissy, so they’re family to me. I call his brother uncle Mike. So we go way, way back.”
And, because the two “go way, way back,” Brooks isn’t getting away with much.
“I watched a game she coached earlier in the season, and she had a crutch,” Brooks said. “And I’m like, ‘What did she do? What is the crutch?’ And I asked her what the crutch was for, and she said she went to the doctor, and the doctor said she had a torn labrum. And she tried to blame it on me, that I ran her too hard. And I said, ‘Jen, hold on. That was about 25 years ago, so you can’t blame that on me.’”
Next game
No. 16 Kentucky at Purdue
When: 5 p.m. Saturday
TV: Big Ten Network
Records: UK 8-1, Purdue 5-4
Series: Purdue leads 2-0
Last meeting: Purdue won 97-67 on Dec. 1, 2000 in Lexington
