Blanche Ely turns to Maffett as head coach

Blanche Ely has found the coach to take over for Melvin Randall.

The Tigers have hired Taravella coach and former Ely assistant coach Brent Maffett to be the program’s new boys basketball coach, Maffett and Ely assistant principal Malcolm Spence told the Sun Sentinel on Thursday.

“I’m excited,” Maffett said. “It’s like coming back home. I coached there many years with Randall, and then obviously I moved on to different venues. … But coming back is like a home away from home for me.”

Maffett turned around the Taravella program last year, going 17-4 after the Trojans went 10-16 in 2018-19.

Before taking the job at Taravella, Maffett was the head coach at American Heritage, where he spent four seasons. He went 56-28 at American Heritage.

He also was the head coach at Piper for three years and had two stints as an assistant coach at Ely.

Maffett has the tough task of replacing a legendary basketball coach. Randall, who left his position at Ely to become the new Chaminade-Madonna coach, won nine state championships — seven of which were with the Tigers. He has a career record of 591-184.

“It’s big shoes to fill because at the end of the day, he’s done a tremendous job of taking the program to another level,” Maffett said. “The good thing about it is I had the opportunity to coach with him for a long time … and then also the times that I wasn’t there, it was good for me to branch off and be a head coach of my own program. But I never lost touch as far as building things and things I learned from him.”

Ely won the 2018-19 state title but went 11-13 last year and missed the postseason. Maffett thinks that record is a little misleading.

“I know they had a tough schedule last year, so I think a lot of people take that for granted,” Maffett said. “They were a sub-.500 team, but you’ve got to look at the competition they played.”

Maffett said if players from the area stick to attending Ely, the program could be back to being a consistent title contender again.

“I think it’s important to get kids from the community to come to their home school instead of having kids branching off and bring the tradition back that way,” Maffett said.

Maffett