GOING OUT ON TOP
BRAD KARREN RETIRING AS KODIAK WOMEN’S COACH
CCAA coach of the year led Kodiaks to national basketball title
The Lethbridge College Kodiaks most decorated coach is putting down his clipboard.
The Kodiaks announced Friday that women’s basketball head coach Brad Karren has announced his retirement.
Following a 2016-17 season which the Kodiaks were a perfect 27-0 on their way to the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference and Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association championship titles, Karren — who also earned double honours as the ACAC and CCAA Coach of the Year — walks away a winner.
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while and I talked with my wife and (thought) that maybe it was a good time,” said Karren. “It’s hard to follow up with what we did and it’s a good time to go. You want to go out on top. I don’t want to go out if I lose, so it’s good.”
That view from the top has been fuelled by provincial and national titles.
In addition to this year’s national title, Karren also coached the Kodiaks to the national crown in 2003-04 in addition to bringing five ACAC titles (2003-04, 2006-07, 200809, 2014-15, 2016-17) to the program.
Those team accolades have earned Karren seven ACAC South Division Coach of the Year honours (2001-02, 200203, 2003-04, 2004-05, 2008-09, 2014-15, 2016-17) as well as two CCAA Coach of the Year titles, first in 2008-09 and again this year.
“It means a lot,” said Karren of heading out on a high note. “It’s been a great three years since I came back. It’s been a really good bunch of girls that we’ve coached and we were really careful who we brought in. We tried to bring in a lot of local kids that knew how to win and played hard and tried to build a culture at the college of trying to succeed.
“But what I’m really going to remember is who I coached. Sunder West is a relative and just a wonderful girl and played hard, it was an honour to coach her.”
“With Emma Lowry leaving, I got to coach her the last three years. All those girls came in and were really good. Logan Moncks was great and Amanda Lee, I recruited her years ago and she’s been really good for us. That’s what I’ll miss, but that’s what I’ll remember, those players that are from around here that are local that I really think a lot of.”
An alumnus of the Kodiaks program, the product of Magrath coached the women’s team for 14 seasons over two separate terms.
He took over the women’s program in 1999-2000 after previously serving as an assistant coach with the men’s team.
Karren remained at the college until 2010-11 when he left to become an assistant coach at the University of Lethbridge.
He returned to the Kodiaks in 2014-15 and over the next three seasons led the team to a record of 73-3 in ACAC and CCAA competition.
“Over the years I’ve had some really good teams,” said Karren, who has coached five ACAC Players of the Year (Mickey Folsom in 2004-05, Tara Griffith in 2005-06, Kayla Lambert in 2008-09, Ali Cameron in 2014-15 and Moncks this season) as well as 37 ACAC all-stars. “It takes a special group to win and that was a special team for me. We’ve had a lot of good teams. It’s really hard to win a national tournament. Depending on where you’re playing, you have to be good to get there, but you have to be lucky to win it. You have to have those breaks. But all those teams were really good, but this year was special because we were undefeated and that makes it special. They never got a taste of losing the whole season and that’s not easy to do.”
As of Friday, Karren said he hasn’t had a chance to sit and talk with his players about his decision to step down.
“I think they’ll be happy for me,” he said. “I think they kind of knew it might be coming and they’ve said the same thing ‘If you’re going to retire, retire as a winner.’ I don’t think it’ll be a shock to them. They’ll go on and do well and they’ll be fine.”
The now-former Kodiaks coach has made sure of that.
“I’ve spent a lot of time recruiting the last few months and we’ve put together a very good team for next year. So it’ll be good. Whoever takes over, they’ll have some really good players coming,” said Karren, adding he has talked to manager of Kodiaks Athletics Todd Caughlin about helping out the program in a lesser role. “We’ve had some discussions and he’s been really good with what’s going on. I’ll help a little bit behind the scenes. I wouldn’t mind helping a little bit with Todd. Just a few behind-the-scenes things would be OK.”
In the meantime, it’s time to kick back for a while.
“I’ll just take some time off,” said Karren. “Right now I’m just helping my daughter with coaching club teams in Magrath. Magrath is my home town and I might help out there a little bit this next year, we’ll see how things go. But it’s been great at the college and there couldn’t be a better place to coach for me. It’s been awesome. I’ll always have the Kodiaks tattooed on my heart.”