By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

After spending the past decade moving up the ranks from player to assistant director for player development for the Houston Cougars men’s basketball team, Bahamian Mikhail McLean has taken on a new job as an assistant coach for the Lamar University Cardinals.

The move, which enabled him to become the first Bahamian male to secure a division one basketball coaching job, came right after the Cougars fell short of advancing to the final of the NCAA March Madness Basketball Championships last month. McLean was invited to be a part of the coaching staff of new head coach Alvin ‘Road Runner’ Brooks, who returned to his alma mater after spending the past 11 seasons as an assistant at the University of Houston.

The 29-year-old McLean would have assumed his player development job in the 2016-17 season after he entered the professional ranks with the Cougars in internal operations during the 2015-16 season.

Thanks to the assistance from Bahamian Olympic bronze medallist Frank Rutherford and his Foundation in Houston, McLean was able to play for the University of Houston from 2010-2015.

McLean said it was a bitter-sweet transition to Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, where he will officially begin working today.

But he’s even more delighted to be able to work for Brooks, a coaching veteran with nearly 40 years of experience on the sidelines, beginning as an assistant for Cardinal Hall of Honour head coach Pat Foster.

“When we were getting ready for our Final Four game against Baylor that Saturday, he pulled me in his hotel room that Tuesday to let me know that he had a strong chance of getting the head coaching job at Baylor and he wanted to know if I would be interested in joining him,” said McLean in an interview with The Tribune.

“I told him to let me talk with my wife and my family, but I would most definitely be interested. So two days later, this would have been Thursday, he got the job. It was official, so at that point, I kind of knew that I was going to go with him. On Friday, the day before the Final Four game, I got the job, but it wasn’t made official until this week.” It’s a move that McLean relishes, considering that it took him about an hour and a half to drive from Houston to Beaumont, to check out his new job.

“It’s a long time coming. It’s something that I worked so hard for,” he stressed. “This was my sixth year as a coach with Houston in the Player Development department. All of that has prepared me for this moment.

“The only difference from what I did in Houston is that I would be able to physically go on the road and recruit. I can get on a plane and come to the Bahamas and check out players at homes. In Houston, I couldn’t really deal with players in the Bahamas. The most I could do is to get in contact with coaches, all of whom I know already, so I hope to take advantage of that.”

So far, he’s already been introduced to the movers and shakers at Lamar, including his new boss, Marco Born, the Athletic Director, who welcomed him to the Cardinals’ programme on Thursday.

During his tenure in Houston, McLean played a key role in the program’s resurgence as the Cougars won 20-plus games in four consecutive seasons and captured back-to-back American Athletic Conference championships for only the second time in school history.

The Cougars enjoyed NCAA Tournament appearances in 2018 and 2019, including a Sweet 16 berth in 2019, and were poised for a third straight NCAA appearance in 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic cutting the season short.

The program has also reached national prominence by being ranked in the Top 25 in the Associated Press and Ferris Mowers Coaches Poll for three consecutive years.

But as a player with the Cougars from 2010 to 2015, McLean was the epitome of the term student-athlete.

For a player considered late bloomer at St John’s College where he did every other sport except basketball, McKean went on to compete in 101 games during his collegiate career with 34 starting roles. He scored a career-high 14 points against crosstown-rival Rice as a senior and grabbed 10 rebounds at TCU in 2012 before being sidelined with a foot injury.

In the classroom, he was a four-time member of the conference Commissioner’s Honor Roll/All-Academic Team during his career and received the Conference USA Winter Spirit of Service Award in 2013.

McLean received his bachelor’s degree in health promotions in three years from the University of Houston in 2013. He followed that with his master’s degree in health education from UH in 2015.

Rutherford, the first Bahamian to win s track and field medal at the Olympics when he secured a bronze in the men’s triple jump in Barcelona, Spain in 1992, said it’s always a total delight and enjoyment to one of the 100-plus Bahamians who came through his foundation to excel at another level than just playing.

“The mission of our foundation is to give young people the opportunity to user sports primarily basketball and football from young teenagers in the US system so they would be able to achieve,” Rutherford said.

“Mikhail came to me at the age of 13 or 14 and was a young man, who always had the maturity and humbleness and ability to be a leader, even among his peers. He always knew that he had leadership qualities to become an owner or president of an NBA team or even a college of NBA coach.”

As the first Bahamian male to become a NCAA Division One college basketball coach, is a huge accomplishment, according to Rutherford. He said he’s also turned out to be an amazing husband and father.

“This is just one of the fruits of the works of the Frank Rutherford Foundation and we are extremely proud of him and looking forward to his continued climb up the ladder,” Rutherford summed up.

McLean said after 11 years, he’s thrilled that Brooks, who helped him to get into the University of Houston through his connection with Rutherford, was the first head coach to reach out to him and offered him an assistant coaching job.

“This programme (at Lamar) is similar to the University of Houston,” McLean pointed out. “It’s a programme that has a chance to be really good. It just didn’t have the right coaching staff and the money poured into it,” McLean said.

“I got to Houston, it was the same thing. When I played for the Cougars, it was the same thing. We really didn’t have fans in the gym and the city really didn’t show us any love. We didn’t do a great job before coach Samson got there. It’s the same way at Lamar. I think we will be really good under coach Brooks at Lamar.”

As he prepares to move his wife, Arrion, and two sons from Houston to Beaumont, McLean said he’s eager to come home and take a look at the players who could possibly come to Lamar to play for the Cardinals.

Still under restrictions because of Covid-19, McLean said he intends to come home at the end of June where he will be able to do some recruiting and to assist head coach Chris DeMarco of the Golden State Warriors as an assistant on the men’s national basketball team that will represent the Bahamas.

“It’s been a long time coming. I just had to keep my faith. I knew a long time what I wanted to do,” said McLean of finally cracking the ranks as an assistant coach. “I just had to wait for the opportunity.

“But I owe it all to my mother, Olivia McLean, who passed away on January 20. She kept me going. But all credit to God and to Frank Rutherford for giving me the opportunity at 14 years old to come to Houston and coach Kevin ‘KJ’ Johnson, who played a key role in my early development.”

While at Houston, McLean received his bachelor’s degree in health promotions in December 2013. He also earned Conference USA Winter Spirit of Service Award, two-time American Athletic Conference All-Academic Team (2013-14 and 2014-15); Conference USA Commissioner’s Honor Roll (2012-13) and C-USA Commissioner’s Honor Roll (2010-11).