Brooks School is proud to share that the New England Preparatory School Athletic Council has named our boys 1st basketball Head Coach Kenya Jones NEPSAC Class B Co-Coach of the Year!

“It's surreal,” Jones said about the news, announced on April 3. “It’s indescribable.” But so well-deserved, especially following his team’s unrelenting NEPSAC tournament battle, in which they triumphed over three teams all seeded higher than them, to win the championship with a buzzer-beater by Class B Player of the Year and All-NEPSAC honoree Alex Wilkins ’25.

Jones has been leading teams at Brooks since 2006. During his nearly 20 years on campus, the native New Yorker and University of Massachusetts-Lowell grad has coached football, girls lacrosse and two levels of boys basketball; taught health and psychology; served as a director of multicultural affairs and outreach, dorm parent, student advisor, advisor to the Black Student Union and worked as assistant director of admission.

Currently, Jones is Brooks’ associate director of admission and boys 1st basketball head coach — a position Jones has held for just three years.

He took a break from celebrating the “pure joy” of the team’s win and excitement about his honor to talk about what being named Coach of the Year means to him, why he can’t turn off his “basketball brain” and where he and the team go from here:  

Q: Coach of the Year! What does that mean to you?

Jones: “I haven't fully grasped what it means. I don't know how to feel about it. To gain that respect is pretty neat but honestly, I don't feel like I am. I don't feel like I've earned that just yet. I don't feel like [the championship win] was me. It was everyone. It was everything. It was the kids. It was my assistant coaches. It was my managers. It was the athletic department. It wasn't just me.”

Q: That championship victory was pretty incredible. Is it a career highlight?

Jones: “There can't be any bigger highlight than what just happened. Alex Wilkins [shown below] making that shot? In the championship game in that moment, under the circumstances, us being underdogs the whole way through, not even knowing if we're going to make the playoffs? Having an under-500 record going into the playoffs, injuries throughout the whole season? That shot, to me, it's a shot heard around New England. To dethrone Rivers, who's going for their fourth [title], under those circumstances? That's big. That's huge.”

Q: You must have given one heck of a motivational speech!

Jones: “No. That's all built in. I would tell them, ' I'm going to be the biggest thorn in your side from the start of the season and if you can get through me, you can get through anything.’ I emphasized always doing the little things ‘right.’ Me being tough on them was the hardest thing that they had to go through… to a point where these kids, they coached themselves at the end of it. For better or for worse, they were me on the court. How I coached is how they played towards the end of it. They scrapped. They fought. They dug. They didn't quit. It's how I coach. I may not be the best play-caller or draw up the best plays, but we're not gonna quit. You're gonna keep going. And they embraced that. So I was never worried, and they were never worried, no matter how much we were down. There was nothing that I had to say other than, ‘Keep playing. Keep doing what you're doing. We're okay.’ There wasn't any big speech. It was, ‘Chip away. You'll be fine.’ That's what they did.”

Q: You coached for 15+ years with longtime former head coach John McVeigh, under whom the team had an 84-game win streak, three New England wins and seven league titles. How did working with him inspire your approach?

Jones:  “That first year, coaching JV, I went 14 and 2. In my mind, I was the greatest coach. Then when I became faculty in 2007, living on campus, I would watch all his practices. After watching the first one, I stopped doing what I was doing. I didn't understand that I needed to coach personalities more than x's and o's, and I got a blend of that watching Coach McVeigh. He broke down practices and made it easy to digest. So I scrapped everything that I was doing and said, ‘I'm going do what he does.' He's the greatest coach this league has ever seen and I challenge anyone to dispute that claim. I'd be a fool to try to recreate the wheel. I am simply adding my own touch to the foundation that has already been laid.”

Q: Now you’re owning it and killing it. What is your favorite thing about coaching?

Jones: “Winning, of course. Winning. It's just fun. Since taking over for McVeigh, I've heard all the whispers that Brooks basketball was all done. I carried that chip on my shoulder. So long as I have a say, we're not going anywhere. Everybody great was highly doubted. I'm a competitor. Even after we won the championship, it didn't hit me that there was no more practice so I didn't have to plan practice. In my brain, I was like, ‘Okay, now I've got to go back and watch film and then do this and then break it down.’ It's so regimented in my brain that it doesn't really turn off during the season.”

Q: You’ve won the championship and coach honor. Where do you go from here? What's your next goal?

Jones: “Knowing that I can do it, I know I can keep doing it. I know it's not easy, because now you have the expectation and the bullseye on your back, but I've been part of undefeated seasons here with McVeigh where the expectation was that you keep winning. You keep it going, but you keep it going a practice at a time, a day at a time. That's the only way it works. Once the next season comes, this is in the past. Focus now on learning how to relay your teaching and information better, so that it’s received better. I think that's what I've got to do: understand how kids understand a little bit more, to make my job a little bit easier. We’re graduating three players, and two managers, so a good number are returning. It’s going to look different next year but the majority there understand what we're doing, what we want to do and where we're going.”

Q: What makes coaching at Brooks special? How has the school supported you and the team?

Jones: “Brooks allows me just to be myself. I can get fiery. I'll never forget my junior year in high school. I had the sneakers that were different colors on each foot. My basketball coach looked at me and said, ‘You are not getting in this game until you put the same two sneakers on.’ And I was like, ‘What?!’ That was me expressing myself and for me to have to change? That zapped all my confidence. Now, you look at all the kids and the colors and the flashiness of what they have, I couldn't do that back then. I want my kids to be able to be themselves, too. And the support by this community, by these kids when I watch the film and see the stands at games… I wish there were more off-day games so that we could go support other teams like they’ve supported us.

This is a cool place, and it's a cool thing, and I'm thankful. I'm blessed. I'm honored. I'm grateful. I'm all the words because I could be at another place, another school, and it could've been a not-great program with not-great people where you don't care about basketball, where you don't care about the kids. But I landed in a really neat place and for that, I'm grateful.”