How Alvin Brooks went from being a lowly backup at Idaho State to the country's top assistant in Lexington

“(Alvin) Brooks was announced as a member of (Mark) Pope’s first Kentucky staff two weeks after the new head coach was hired, a bombshell move within college basketball…

“Brooks brings the reputation as one of the top recruiters in college basketball, and he’s landed one top-10 prospect in each of the last three cycles, along with developing several Baylor players into NBA draft picks in recent years…”

--Louisville Courier-Journal

“The hiring of Alvin Brooks is a major coup… his addition is huge.”

--Matt Norlander, CBS Sports Insider

“Brooks is highly respected in the profession. It’s a major coup for Pope. AB3 is ELITE.”

--Trilly Donovan, national college basketball reporter

“You’d be hard-pressed to find a national media member who is not a fan a fan of Brooks.”

--Tyler Thompson, KSR Plus

Twenty-four years earlier, Alvin Brooks III was just a backup shooting guard on moderately successful Big Sky Conference teams at Idaho State University.

He was struggling to stay healthy on the court and trying to figure out what the future held for him off of it.

The son of a Division I basketball coach, Brooks had seen the demands of coaching up close and personal, and he knew that after he left ISU with a bachelor’s degree in finance and a master’s in athletic administration, he wanted nothing to do with that profession.

So he shadowed then ISU Athletic Director Jim Senter for six months and decided being an athletic director wasn’t for him, either. Brooks, who was generally known as a quiet, reserved and unfailingly polite young man, then decided to use his business degree to help athletes manage their personal finances.

“To be honest,” Brooks said in a recent interview, “I was miserable with both (finance and athletic administration).”

Then he went to see his friend Rashard Lewis, who was playing for the NBA’s Seattle SuperSonics at the time, and watched him work out. He keenly observed the work of Sonic coaches Dwayne Casey and Nate McMillan, and came to a conclusion.

“I thought, ‘I can do this,’ ” said Brooks.

So he called his father, Alvin Brooks II, a veteran coach at several major Texas schools, and told him he wanted to be a coach.

“He said, ‘No,’ ” the younger Brooks recalled. “He told me to call him back in two weeks.”

Two weeks later, the young Brooks again called his dad, who had apparently come to terms with the thought of his son following in his footsteps. His father told him he needed to start out at the junior college ranks, so that he could learn how to not only recruit, but also how to teach the game.

And that was the launching point of the career of one of the hottest assistant coaching commodities in the country. Brooks III was an assistant coach on two different junior college national championship teams and served time as an assistant at two mid-major programs in Sam Houston State and Bradley, before getting his first taste of the big leagues under Bruce Weber at Kansas State.

Then he got the opportunity to join the burgeoning program at Baylor University under Scott Drew, who was leading the Bears out of the darkness of a scandal a decade earlier that not only included severe NCAA recruiting sanctions, but also encompassed the murder of Bears’ player Patrick Dennehy by his teammate, Carlton Dotson.

Brooks III joined Drew’s staff in 2016, and was a key recruiter and talent developer for the 2021 national championship Bears’ team. As an added bonus, Alvin III got to coach against his dad, who was an assistant at Houston at the time, in the title game.

Brooks III continued to build his coaching reputation by landing nationally ranked recruits, including Keyonte George, who was the top draft pick of the Utah Jazz last year. Then, when BYU coach Mark Pope grabbed the highly-coveted Kentucky job this spring, he brought Brooks III in to be his associate head coach — arguably the most prestigious assistant coaching position in the nation.

“I thank God every day that he chose me to have these opportunities, and I don’t take them for granted,” Brooks said. “I definitely look back and, if you’d have told me 21 years ago that I would be here at Kentucky with the success I’ve been blessed to be a part of — I wouldn’t have believed you.”

THE IDAHO STATE DAYS

Nor would his Idaho State coaches at the time, Doug Oliver, the Bengal head coach, and his assistants Louis Wilson and Jay McMillin.

“He has truly followed in his dad’s footsteps, but we wouldn’t have given $20, the three of us, that he was going to go into coaching because he was such a quiet, understated guy,” said Wilson, who is now an assistant coach at Loyola-Marymount.

Oliver, who was in his third season at ISU when the Bengals brought Brooks into the program out of Midland Junior College in Texas, said Alvin was always trying to fill the role of coach’s son, and later as team captain.

“Alvin gave us two solid years,” said Oliver, who is now retired and living in Las Vegas. “I think maybe he would have had more stats and things if he applied himself, but he wanted to be a team guy. He had some teammates that struggled with that concept.”

Brooks averaged 5.4 points and just under 13 minutes a game in his ISU career, during which he was constantly battling injuries. His first season on the squad, he played only three games before being sidelined. Later, in an incident that Brooks and the coaching staff still rehash, he injured his hamstring while running drills on Sept. 11, 2001.

“The day of the unfortunate, tragic events of Sept. 11, I remember walking out of my class in the business building and watching everybody surrounding the television,” Brooks said. “I remember looking at the TV and seeing what was going on, and I figured we (the ISU basketball team) would just not do anything that day.”

But the coaching staff had other plans, noted Brooks, whose birthday was also on Sept. 11.

“I remember being highly upset during that time,” he said. “Mentally, I don’t know why, I always tell coach Wilson this — ‘We shouldn’t have done anything on that day.’”

Despite his quiet nature, Brooks became a de facto spokesman for the Bengals, who went a combined 39-45 overall, 20-24 in conference play during his three years in the program. The 2000-2001 season that Brooks largely missed because of injury, was Oliver’s most successful team in his eight years at Idaho State, finishing 10-6 and third place in the Big Sky behind the play of Jordie McTavish, Tim Erickson and D’Marr Suggs.

“Alvin, even before he became a team captain, he was that guy that would come into my office and say, ‘Coach, we’ve been talking as a team. We had a team meeting, would you consider this? Is this a possibility?,’” Oliver said. “He was very willing to be that guy.”

Looking back on his time at Idaho State, Brooks feels like that perhaps he was not assertive enough during his time as a team captain.

“I learned a lot at Idaho State, but it’s weird — it was not through success, unfortunately,” Brooks said. “I learned I wasn’t a good leader at Idaho State as a player. I was chosen to be the captain of the team, but because I wasn’t playing consistently, I didn’t help the team as much as I could have helped the team. Me learning that enabled me to see how our team was divided and I didn’t help as much as I could. Now as a coach, I’m able to see those things a lot faster. I’m able to share my experience to make sure the teams I coach don’t go through that. Because the most connected teams have a better chance of winning.”

LIFELONG BONDS

As he followed his coaching evolution, Brooks stayed connected with his Idaho State roots, including his former teammates, coaches and even some professors. In particular, he’s maintained a relationship with Wilson, who he lived with during his last year in Pocatello, while working on his master’s degree. After Brooks served as an assistant on two different national junior college championship squads, Wilson figured his former player was onto something.

“I remember telling him, ‘You’re either a lucky rabbit’s foot, or you’re pretty good,’” Wilson said.

Brooks gradually grew out of the quiet persona that fooled so many people about his coaching potential. During the pandemic, he teamed with then-Baylor assistant and now Kansas State head coach Jerome Tang to develop an online mentoring program for aspiring young coaches. Wilson could see Brooks’ confidence and competence emerge through a platform that was reaching up-and-comers in the coaching profession.

“His respect just grew exponentially,” said Wilson. “Alvin, the way he’s held, it’s really hard to be in our profession and have no enemies, but he has no enemies, he just produces. He’s grown, his voice has grown stronger. He’s still a quiet guy — he’s not going to be the loudest guy in the room. He’s like a poker player as a coach — you don’t know a lot about what’s he’s doing in the business.”

Brooks’ character may best be exemplified by a gesture he extended to Wilson a year after he was part of Baylor’s national championship season. It was at the end of a grueling season for Wilson, who was the head coach at Division II University of Texas-Tyler at the time. His team had suffered a painful defeat in the postseason, and Wilson was worn down and discouraged after the long basketball season grinded to a halt. He came into his coaching office one day and found a large envelope waiting for him there that had come from Brooks III.

“I opened it up and there’s a card in it,” Wilson recalled. “It said, ‘Coach, thanks for everything. If I’m a champion, you’re a champion.’”

“And I thought, ‘Oh that’s really nice,’ because I was really down. As a teacher and a coach, anytime a former student or player reaches back, that’s kind of what you coach for.”

But then a graduate assistant who was in the office pointed to a box that also came with the package.

“I opened it up and there’s a ring box and in it there’s a duplicate Baylor national championship ring,” said Wilson. “Man, you’re talking about emotion. But that’s who he (Brooks III) is. That’s the rock solid, classy dude he is. He’s such a genuine guy, you know that comes from a real place.”

LIFE IN KENTUCKY

Since his hiring at Kentucky in April, life has been a bit of a blur for Brooks and his family. A significant task has been getting his family adjusted to their new surroundings. Brooks has been very open about the challenges his family faces with both of his boys having been diagnosed with autism.

“It’s not been easy having a son with severe autism and being nonverbal,” Brooks III said of his oldest son, Alvin IV. “He’s 10 years old and not able to communicate what he wants. It’s definitely not easy at all, but that’s something we’re living with. ... I’m blessed to have my wife Tiffany. She does a lot for our family, she’s the superstar of our family. She does a lot in order for me to live out this dream.”

Brooks was pleased to find that Lexington, the home of UK, is a bigger city with more resources available to help his family.

“Our youngest son (Austin) keeps saying he loves Kentucky, so that’s a great thing,” said Brooks. “Lexington is a big city. I didn’t realize it was as big as it is. It’s a lot bigger than Waco, so there’s a lot more for the kids to do. I think they’re adjusting very well. They’re enjoying it, and it’s only going to get better when the games start.”

Then there is the basketball side of the move. When former longtime Kentucky coach John Calipari departed for Arkansas after last season, most of the Wildcat roster left town with him. So Pope, Brooks and the rest of the UK staff have spent the last few months rebuilding the team, adding 12 new players heading into next season.

How do you meld all of those different personalities together?

“It’s a day-by-day process,” said Brooks. “The great thing about it is we have 12 guys who are very coachable, 12 guys that are working hard.”

Pope, as the head coach, will be feeling the brunt of the expectations of Wildcat fans, who have grown impatient waiting for the program to add to the eight national championship banners that now hang in Rupp Arena. But Brooks, with all of the press clippings that his hiring has generated, as well as a generous contract that will pay him $800,000 in base salary along with the potential for another $130,000 in bonuses, is certainly under external pressure to produce as well.

“It’s a blessing that people are writing about me,” said Brooks. “But I don’t read it. Because my goal is to make sure that I have the same habits that I’ve always had and I just live with the results. Nobody cares what you did last year, or even yesterday. So my goal is to wake up every day and give my all to Kentucky and to the young men I’m able to coach and their families. And to make sure I represent my family well. I think pressure comes when you’re not prepared. I’m prepared for this moment, so there is no pressure for me.”

Brooks acknowledges that being a head coach someday is one of his goals, but he doesn’t know when or where that may happen. Wilson, who was a finalist for the Idaho State head coaching job that eventually went to Bill Evans back in 2012, actually had talks with Brooks about joining him on the Bengal staff back then. But Brooks’ career trajectory has far exceeded Big Sky Conference jobs now.

“If Alvin Brooks wants to be a head coach, he’ll be a head coach,” said Wilson. “I think it’s up to him if that’s something he wants to do. I think everything points to that. I don’t think you become the associate head coach at Kentucky and even question if he’s going to be a head coach. ... When he is a head coach, it’s going to be a pretty big press conference.”