For the second time this spring, Texas Wesleyan loses a coach at an odd time
Unless the L.A. Lakers are offering you their head coaching job, the second week of June is not the time a college basketball coach leaves.
For Texas Wesleyan, odd times are the norm.
Brennen Shingleton said he has resigned as the men’s basketball coach at TWU to take a job in the private sector in Fort Worth. Shingleton will replaced by assistant Brian Wanamaker.
This move comes three months after Joe Prud’homme resigned as the program’s football coach in March. After a lengthy search, the school hired UTSA linebackers coach Brad Sherrod to replace Prud’homme.
College football coaches don’t normally move on in March. College basketball coaches don’t leave in June.
According to people familiar Texas Wesleyan, the athletic department is going through a budget reduction that affect both the football and men’s basketball programs.
These types of things often happen when new leadership takes over; Texas Wesleyan hired Dr. Emily W. Messer as its President in June of 2023.
Texas Wesleyan athletic director Ricky Dotson said Monday that the modifications in his department’s budget are not a result of leadership change. That the modifications are just a new reality in college athletics.
“For a small, private college these are the realities we are all facing,” Dotson said in a phone interview on Monday while he was in Las Vegas attending a national convention for college athletic directors.
“There have been some adjustments made to the way we do scholarships. There are rising costs, and it has changed the way we’ve had to do things, and it’s made our coaches re-evaluate the way they do things. It’s had some impact, but I don’t think it will have any impact on our teams from a competitive standpoint.”
Dotson was effusive in his praise for Shingleton, a man he was known since the now ex-TWU coach was 18. Shingleton played basketball for Dotson on the junior college level.
Shingleton, who was the head coach at TWU for 11 seasons and had been with the program for 22 years, said the only reason he left the school was for a job he could not pass.
“In my personal opinion it’s easy to decipher to that conclusion why a person left but that’s not it. Those sorts of things happen (in NAIA sports),” Shingleton said in a phone interview on Monday. “The reason I am leaving is because I was offered an opportunity to work in oil and gas, and this is an opportunity that might not come around again.
“It’s perfect for my family. I’ve got four kids. We don’t have to move. The kids don’t have to change schools. I love Texas Wesleyan, and I still want to help the program. I will help raise money for the athletic department. I still want to be incorporated with them. This is a decision that is based on what is best for my family.”
Shingleton leaves as one of the most successful coaches in the history of the school.
He was named the Sooner Athletic Conference Coach of the Year in 2016 and 2017. He was named the NAIA National Coach of the Year, the season he coached the Rams to a national championship, in 2017.
“The other part to this is, what else could I have done at Texas Wesleyan?” he asked.
Not much.
He loved the school. He loved the job. He loved the kids.
The challenges for an NAIA coach are vast, and vastly different than a coach at an NCAA Division I program.
As Division I sports rapidly changed in the last two years, the trickle down effect to Shingleton’s job was unmistakable. He said he had seven players this previous season who were transfers from the Division I level.
All of the kids he recruited didn’t realize that “NIL” doesn’t really exist at the NAIA level. The young person simply doesn’t know.
“I knew that anybody I was recruiting, they didn’t grow up cheering for Texas Wesleyan. They didn’t have a Texas Wesleyan pennant in their bedroom growing up,” he said. “Some people didn’t like that I would say that but it was the truth.
“I knew what we could offer something to a kid that mattered. That they would get to play basketball. That they would be a part of a team, and a part of something. That they could get their degree at a great place, in a great city.”
The timing is odd for Texas Wesleyan, but it fit perfectly for Brennen Shingleton.
