After No. 4 Texas women’s basketball’s hard-fought, scrappy win over No. 18 Kentucky on Monday night, Wildcats head coach Kenny Brooks didn’t dwell much on his team’s performance against the Longhorns.
Instead, Brooks spent a significant portion of his postgame press conference praising Texas head coach Vic Schaefer — both for what he’s built on the court and for who he is away from it.
Postgame handshakes between coaches are usually brief and routine, but Brooks and Schaefer lingered in conversation.
“He said we played really hard,” Brooks said. “And coming from someone like him — I respect Vic as much as or more than anybody in the country. The way he does things, he does it the right way. He speaks up for the right things. He’s fair.”
Brooks and Schaefer share more than long resumes. Both are veteran coaches in a women’s basketball landscape that has rapidly grown under their watch. Both have guided programs to conference championships and Final Four appearances.
But perhaps the most meaningful common ground between them lies at the intersection of basketball and family.
Brooks’ daughter, Gabby, is a junior guard at Kentucky. She also played under her father at Virginia Tech two years ago. Coaching one’s own child can be a delicate dynamic, particularly in an era when concerns about nepotism and athlete agency is heightened. Brooks said he looked to Schaefer as a model for how to navigate it.
Schaefer’s daughter, Blair, is an assistant coach at Texas and previously played for him at Mississippi State. Brooks remembers watching Mississippi State’s runs to the national title games in 2017 and 2018, when Blair was part of the program.
For Brooks, seeing Blair as both a player and a coach within her father’s program showed that it was possible to balance family and the pressure to win. It demonstrated that the dynamic could be handled the right way, and that success could follow.
“The best years of my coaching career have been when I’ve had my family around my group, and I learned that from him,” Brooks said.
The most meaningful part of their postgame exchange, Brooks said, had nothing to do with basketball. Schaefer asked about Brooks’ wife and his family.
That gesture carried weight, Brooks said. His wife, Chrissy, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2023. The following two years were difficult, especially as Brooks took a new job, moved his life to Lexington and began to rebuild a program from the bottom up. Last February, the family announced she was cancer-free.
Regardless of how competitive the two are with each other and outcome on the floor, the respect between the two coaches is bigger than any basketball game.
“As far as coach Brooks, I think he’s a hell of a coach,” Schaefer said. “He’s won everywhere he’s been. He did a great job at Virginia Tech, and now he’s doing it at Kentucky. I just have a tremendous amount of respect for him as a man and as a coach. And (knowing) his wife (is) a cancer survivor, I’m really happy for her and happy for him and his family.”
