Once a Blue Dragon, Always a Blue Dragon: Former Player Brett Ballard Shining as Washburn Men’s Basketball Coach

By Chris Lachenmaier
Sports Editor
IG: @chrissylach

Hutchinson Community College isn’t just a stop for student-athletes – it can change a life forever.

Brett Ballard, the Washburn University men’s basketball coach, was a kid who grew up in Hutchinson and went to school at Hutchinson High School. He played basketball for coach Phil Anderson, and then played at HutchCC.

Anderson was a coach and role model for Ballard.

“Phil Anderson was a great example – he was extremely prepared,” Ballard said. “He held us to very high standards. He challenged us to be the best versions of ourselves every single day.”

Ballard has always been on Anderson’s radar ever since he was young.

“When I moved here in September of 1991, I moved from Salina,” Anderson said. “And in the process of being an assistant basketball coach here on the men’s side, we ran into a lot of camps. We ran summer camps and got to know the talent. Especially those going through Hutchinson High School. Hundreds of kids would come to our camps in the summer, and we knew that Brett was going to be a terrific player.” 

Ballard said Anderson wasn’t always an easy coach to play for.

“He was going to hold you accountable, but I’m grateful that I got to play for him because he made me a better player, a better person,” Ballard said. “A lot of my coaching philosophy is based off the foundation that he is at.”

The camps that would be running in the summer helped Ballard understand basketball.

“You got to play against good competition,” Ballard said. “Once you got to high school, the better players would play after camp and play the whole night with the juco guys. You would go to camp at 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., and then at like 10 p.m., we would go to the little gym in the arena, and we would go down there and play basketball for another hour. So, it was great.”

It was at these camps where Anderson began watching Ballard.

“When he started coming to our camps he was in grade school, and through the process of knowing Brett and seeing him in camps and in middle school, he was one of the up-and-coming great players,” Ballard said. “He loved the game, and you could see that in all of those years of growing up in grade school, middle school and Hutchinson High School … we knew that Brett was going to be a terrific player for us as he came into high school and was part of our program. Brett was a three-year starter for us. He graduated in ‘98 and ended up being an all-state all-class selection.’

Now, Ballard is leading the undefeated Washburn men’s basketball team, the top-ranked team in NCAA Division 2.

“I think there is some luck involved with that, and we have to give a lot of credit to our athletic training staff and our sports performer’s, strength and conditioning coach, who does a good job repairing our guys in the offseason and during the season,” Ballard said. “You know availability is key, and our guys have been available. I think that it’s a huge part of the work that they put in, but the training staff and the coaches have done a really good job repairing our guys to make it to the grind of a season.”

Ballard said he comes prepared every day to be the best version of himself for his team, and he credits Anderson with a lot of that.

“My high school coach, Phil Anderson, is a great example of someone who was extremely prepared,” Anderson said. “He held us to very high standards. He challenged us to be the best versions of ourselves every single day. He was just consistent, a great teacher in the game, and again, you know he got the most of us.”

Anderson said he wasn’t surprised with Ballard’s success.

“His teams are tough,” Anderson said “He holds them accountable; he’s just a terrific coach and he had great parents. And they held him accountable and made him do the right things. That’s how he grew up.”

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