Covenant athletic director Brooks Berry was missing coaching basketball, he just didn’t know it.
“The last two years I’ve been very focused on building the Covenant athletic program and honestly I haven’t thought about coaching a whole lot,” Berry said. “And when Travis (Johnson) left, I started thinking about it.”
Johnson, the former Covenant boys basketball coach, left Covenant School to become the athletic director at The Regents School here in Charlottesville. Late last week after an extensive search, Berry was named as the Eagles’ choice to replace Johnson.
“A lot of great coaches were interested in the job,” Berry said. “We made sure we turned over every stone.”
One of those stones was obviously the man already in the athletic director’s office. Berry, who was formerly the head coach at Fork Union for both the prep and postgraduate programs, also has experience as a collegiate assistant coach and played his college ball at West Virginia University. At WVU, Berry started for three years and was a three time Academic All-Big East selection.
He made the transition from Fork Union to become Covenant’s athletic director two years ago and had no plans to coach. particularly with Johnson, a talented young coach, already in place. But with Johnson leaving the Eagles, he started giving it some thought and eventually, with the support of the school’s administration, decided to take on the new responsibility.
Making that work in the schedule isn’t easy, but assistant athletic director and head football coach Dave Hart makes that a little easier to handle.
“(Berry’s previous assistant) Deb Douglas was incredible at her job and Dave has really picked up where she left off,” Berry said. “It’s a huge asset for me. To have a great teammate like that in the office allows me to have some flexibility to do that.”
He also knows that being in the building already is a key part of what makes him properly positioned to be the new coach.
“With a school our size, we’re trying to develop a program that builds relationships with student athletes and I think a big thing is when the coach is in the school,” Berry said. “The fact that I’m around them every day will only help build on those relationships.”
Berry pointed to Annie Gumbs in field hockey, Bryan Verbrugge in boys soccer and Hart in football as examples of that pattern working nicely within Covenant’s framework. That sort of one-on-one relationship work and the continually building school unity are also a big part of Berry’s vision for the program.
“Lining up for our vision for the athletic program, we want to help them reach their potential both on and off the court,” Berry said. “I’m a man of faith and I think that’ll be an integral part of the program. We need to be coaching and leading at the smallest levels of the school. Any kid, K-12 and a part of Covenant needs to have an opportunity to grow and play basketball.”
Berry is still putting together a staff, but Seth Wilson will serve as an assistant on the varsity as he did when Brooks was coaching Fork Union’s postgraduate squad. Wilson will also be in charge of player development year round. He served as a manager when Berry was at WVU and also worked with the women’s program at Georgia and with the Atlanta Hawks in their grassroots basketball division.
“Hopefully we’ll build a program people in Charlottesville want to be a part of,” Berry said.
