Family Support is Very Important to Kenny Brooks

Kenny Brooks with his family when he accepted the UK coaching job. (Vicky Graff Photo)

After Kentucky’s season ended with an 80-79 overtime loss to Kansas State in the NCAA Tournament second round Sunday, first-year UK coach Kenny Brooks got a bit emotional thinking about the role his family played in his first season with the Cats.

Kentucky finished 23-8, including 11-5 in Southeastern Conference play, and was ranked nationally all season after starting the season 7-0. He took a program that had not been relevant nationally the past few years and put UK back on the national landscape.

Brooks admitted talking about his family — wife, Chrissy, and children Kendyl, Chloe, Gabby and Nicholas — “touched a nerve” because of what they mean to his success.

“It was a big reason why I came here with the administration and their support of me with my family by my side. That’s the only way I could have done it,” he said. “Obviously it’s well documented what my wife has gone through, what we’ve gone through with my wife, and we’re a village. I can’t — she’s the biggest fan that I have.”

His wife, Chrissy, was undergoing cancer treatments when he accepted the UK job and continued to undergo treatment with her doctors in Virginia before being declared cancer free in mid-February.

He also called his children his “biggest fans” and knows the sacrifices they made because of his career.

“This is an opportunity for me to be able to give some of that time back that I missed when I was a young coach. I felt like I was so busy making a life, I wasn’t living a life. And I get an opportunity now to just get bonus time,” Brooks said. “They’re so positive, just such a positive influence on my program.”

His  youngest daughter, Gabby, was a sophomore reserve on the Kentucky team.

“Gabby played four games, but she’s the life of the party in the locker room. She helps humanize me. The girls would go to her and say, ‘Well, is he mad?’ And she can interpret all that. She can tell them what’s going on. That’s really what helped our locker room, other than Georgia (Amoore) knowing me,” the UK coach said.

Kendyl Brooks is the Kentucky basketball team’s operation coordinator after spending the previous year at the Charlotte Hornets coordinator of basketball operations.

“Kendyl is a big supporter. They’re basketball fans, and they have basketball minds, and they’re there for the kids,” Brooks said.

Another daughter, Chloe, is in France but watches every game and calls her father after games.

“She calls me, and she’ll ask me, she’ll preface it and say this is a coaching question, or this is a dad question. She’ll say, ‘Why did you do this? Why did you do that?’” Brooks said. “But it’s just the support. I couldn’t do it without them, and I wouldn’t want to do it without them because it gives us the opportunity to make this program a family.

“So many people will look at it and say, they’ll try to make the narrative that you can’t intersect family and business. I learned from (Texas coach) Vic Schaefer that you can do it. You have to do it the proper way, but my family, they do a really good job and I couldn’t do it without them. That’s why I’m here because they gave me the opportunity to inject family into a program, and that’s the way that we’ll operate.”