Coaching a family affair for duo
The Canadian men’s university basketball championships were replete with This Is Your Life moments for Mike Rao. An assistant on the Brock Badgers coaching staff for the past two seasons, Rao coached against two former players at the final eight in Halifax, one of them his son, Christopher Rao, 22. The younger Rao is an assistant coach with the Acadia Axemen. They ended the 2017-18 season across the Scotiabank Centre court on the losing end of a 94-57 decision. That was the final score in Brock’s victory over Acadia in the consolation final Sunday. The win allowed the Badgers to end their best season in a decade on high note, especially after their hopes for a gold medal were dashed in a loss to the eventual
champion Calgary Dinos in the qualifying round Thursday, the celebration after the fifth-place final nonetheless was bittersweet for the elder Rao. “During the game I was OK because we were competing, but in the fourth quarter it kind of sunk in. “I really feel bad for him,” the 58-year-old Welland native told Brock media relations officer Dan Dakin after the game. The longtime educator at Notre Dame College School was in no mood to celebrate Brock’s second win in as many days. “My career is on the downslope and his is coming up, so I feel terrible. I can’t really celebrate,” said Mike, who coached the Fighting Irish senior boys basketball for 20 seasons before handing the reins to Mark Gallagher. “I’m glad our kids won, but it’s tough for me.” On Sunday in Halifax the younger Rao said it meant a lot to coach against his father. “It was a special moment, especially at nationals,” he said. “I knew it might be a possibility because we were hosting and Brock was having a very good year. “I’m happy that it happened, and especially that it was on the final day.” Three days earlier, the roles
‘‘ “During the game I was OK because we were competing, but in the fourth quarter it kind of sunk in. I really feel bad for him.” MIKE RAO on coaching against his son
were somewhat reversed for Mike Rao. He was the coach losing to a former player as the Dinos handed the Badgers a heartbreaking, two-point loss. Matthew Skinn, a Notre Dame graduate and one-time standout on the court for the Fighting Irish, is in his second season as assistant on Calgary head coach Dan Vanhooren’s coaching staff. Before rejoining Vanhooren’s staff in 2016, Skinn spent four seasons as head coach of the men’s basketball team at Cape Breton University, his alma mater in Sydney. More proof that the world in Canadian basketball can be small? It was in his capacity as head of the men’s program at Cape Breton that Shinn, 37, took Christopher Rao under his wing as an assistant coach. Christopher was at Cape Breton studying history in January 2017 when he came home from the Maritimes to surprise his father at the Tribune Boys Basketball Tournament. Mike’s contribution to sports at Notre Dame and to basketball, in particular, was being recognized on the final night of Ontario’s oldest high school tournament. Christopher, who spent three seasons playing for his father on Notre Dame’s senior boys team, said he never noticed much difference between Mike Rao the dad and Mike Rao the coach. “Not much at all, he’s the same guy all the time,” he told The Tribune at the time. “First and foremost, he’s a teacher: a teacher of the game, a teacher of life lessons.”