Megan McAlister, Staff Reporter
Originally published December 1, 2015

As Billy Rodgers, last year’s head basketball coach left  his position last spring, he hands it off to new head coach Michael Broom.  Broom has been the assistant coach on the varsity team for the past three seasons.

As Broom gains more experience, he realizes more about what being a coach means. He has played most of his life. “I played basketball in high school and then went on and played at Edmonds Community College for two years, and then I played at a small school in Oregon called Pacific University,” Broom said.

Broom has also been a math teacher for eight years. He previously was a head coach at Foster High School for three years, while still teaching here.   “Ultimately I wanted to be a coach and teacher in the same building, so this is what I want to do and I’m really excited about that,” Broom said.

Senior Nick Conway is  enthusiastic about the upcoming season. “I think he’s a great fit. He was our assistant coach, the one who knew the players the best, he’s been there at all the practices,” Conway said. “If anyone was in position to take the job it was definitely him.”

Broom hopes to improve the team as much as he can, planning to focus on the process rather than the results, taking things one day at a time. “Whenever somebody takes over as a head coach the system always changes. He is so intense you have to be giving 100 percent effort 100 percent of the time,” Conway said.

Players know Broom’s coaching style because he was the assistant coach as well as the coach for their summer league. Therefore, although this is Brooms first year as head coach the players have already been getting used to his intense methods.  “If you mess up, you’re on the bench and the next guys up immediately,” Conway said. Whoever is ready to get the job done on the court will go in the game.

Many of Broom’s players have been working in the offseason participating in summer and fall league. Players, such as Conway, went to Portland University and Seaside High School in coastal Oregon.

Portland University, hosted a high school boys basketball camp where players could partake in and work with the Portland players as well as coaches and teammates. This was a four day camp where they worked on skills, developed plays, and played games all while getting to stay in the college dorms.

Players went to seaside Oregon in late June for four days as well. They played everyday in tournaments; five or six games a day with fun competitions for all players to participate in. Many players made it to be finalists in some of the activities such as junior Simon Czyzewski who made it into the all star game, Conway who made it to the dunking contest, and junior, Luis Winters who made it to the three-point competition.

“At both camps there was a sense of brotherhood,” Conway said.

The fall league was less time consuming, it consisted of tuesday practices and morning workouts on tuesday and thursdays. Then every weekend players would play a couple of games at Highline Community College.

The season starts on November 16. Broom and his players are prepared and optimistic about the coming season.