At Friday’s Sport Yukon Annual Awards Night, it won’t be the first time Whitehorse’s Tim Brady is honoured. But this time it will have an air of permanence.
With 21 years of coaching Yukon basketball under his belt, Brady will officially be inducted into the Sport Yukon’s Hall of Fame.
“I think it’s a great honour, I’m thrilled to receive that award and have that recognition,” said Brady. “I know that I’m joining some great company there - some former inductees - so I’m thrilled with it.”
While the Yukon has never been a powerhouse on the national stage in basketball, Brady’s time coaching Yukon teams has some significant highlights and a handful of firsts for the territory.
Brady, who is also the president of Basketball Yukon since 2005 (also serving a term in 2003/04), was at the helm of the Yukon’s boys’ team when they won the Yukon’s first gold in basketball at the 2000 Arctic Winter Games. He was also captaining the ship for the territory’s first wins at national and western Canada tournaments.
“There’s been games where we’ve squeaked out victories, won games on the last shot,” said Brady. “I think the 2007 national tournament in Lennoxville, Quebec, was a highlight for me. We were able to get to two victories that tournament against provincial teams (PEI and Newfoundland) and we won the final game in overtime, on the last shot of the game. That will always be a highlight, for anyone that was on that trip.”
A coach with many hats - er, whistles - Brady has coached seven territorial teams for the nationals, two at the Western Canadian Summer Games, two at the Canada Summer Games and six at the Arctic Winter Games. He has also coached four pan-territorial teams, including the women’s team in 2008, and seven different high school teams (FH Collins Warriors and Porter Creek Rams), which is where he got his start.
A native of Chicago, coming from a “basketball family,” Brady first moved to Ontario before moving to the Yukon in 1989. Once here, he met FH Collins boys coach Lanny Anderson, who Brady now suspects was searching for his own replacement.
“Like me, he was also an American and did some coaching in the States,” said Brady. “I’d come out to some of the practice sessions he asked me to come to. One thing led to another and the next year I was coaching at FH Collins.”
In fact, many of the high school coaches around town, such as Jamie Shaw, Logan Wedge and Sean McCarron, were, at one-point, players under his tutelage.
“I’ve pretty much worked with them all,” said Brady.
In his time here, Brady has won two Sport Yukon Coach of the Year Awards (2000 and 2001) over four nominations. He has also been honoured with the 3M Coaching Canada Award for Excellence.
“It is clear that Basketball in the Yukon has benefited from someone who has truly given of himself,” said Sport Yukon executive director Tracey Bilsky in a media release. “His commitment and dedication to this sport has been more than significant, and for that, we are proud to induct Tim Brady into the Yukon Sport Hall of Fame.”
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com