by As reported first by FOX 8 news earlier today, Berea-Midpark High School Girls Varsity Basketball Coach Kevin McNamara has stepped away from the program. In his place will be Kevin Braaten. McNamara became head coach of the program for the 2022-2023 season, after a very successful stint as head coach of Trinity High School. Ironically enough, he replaced coach Braaten who was the girl’s varsity coach at the time and moved over to coach the boys.
Coach Braaten has been successful in stints with Brunswick, Berea-Midpark, Laurel and Berea-Midpark once again as both the boys and girl’s coach. For the time being, Coach Braaten will head up the girls program while Tom Harrington will head up the boys. Both Braaten and McNamara are two of the largest names in the girls basketball community, running the highly successful MAC AAU program. Coach Braaten and Coach McNamara have both been named coach of the year while Braaten has captured several SWC titles and District championships.
High School Basketball is set to begin later this month.
PLEASE NOTE – I have reached out for comments from Coach Braaten, Coach McNamara, along with the schools athletic director and Superintendent. This story will be updated with their comments if those do occur.
Also, PLEASE NOTE – All comments for this article will be turned off out of respect to the school as well as families involved of the players and coaches.
First of all I feel bad for everyone involved, the kids first and foremost. In today’s day and age when mental health among teens is at an all time high. You look up to your coach the person you can trust and this happens. I feel bad for Coach Mac he’s a dad and a husband and a grandfather who should know better. When someone resigns he knows he has done wrong. I hope he never coaches or is around young female athletes again . I hope people wake up! This guy is not a nice person he sadly made a mistake at Trinity to. Kept his job… I hope the school district gives us answers! We deserve to know the truth quit protecting people … and protect our children!
Can you link to the Fox 8 story?
Let me get this straight , coach resigns , nobody’s talking about what happened. New girls coach daughter plays on the team … boys fill in coach son plays on the team freshman… which kudos to the young fella. Athletic director is silent . Guy who resigned his daughter got fired from being the girls coach … sounds like a Jerry Springer show . Plus the coach who resigned heads Mac basketball good program by the way … but whatever reason comes out no way am I having my daughter play for this organization. To top it off I think he was under watch at Trinity for an incident… but sure hire him and keep him around our youth ! Do better people !
Unfortunately the layers of this really don’t surprise too many people in the basketball world. I wouldn’t wish a situation like this on anyone involved, however the poster above was correct – he just really isn’t a very nice person. McNamara has always thought that he is above the law. He owes many people money for gym fees associated with his AAU basketball program. He has repeatedly spoken very negatively and spread lies about other HS and AAU coaches and their programs. He makes false promises and has no problem telling parents and kids what they want to hear if it puts money into his pocket. He backstabs most people that he works with eventually. The interesting piece of this is that everyone watching from a distance assumed that Braaten would be taking over – and here we are now. A similar situation with Braaten taking over a team happened at a previous school. Maybe not a coincidence with his daughter on the team?
So let me get this straight , coach Mac resigns. No comment from administration. Allegedly misconduct. Shaming kids ??? That’s a bully . You guys should be ashamed of yourselves for protecting this bully. He’s been doing this for years. Lying about HS coaches AAU coaches just to feed his narrative. He’s a crook and dishonest . And all you people fall for his crap! And he has a tournament being ran this weekend in the Midpark gyms …. Interesting how much money will you guys benefit from this school administration? Are you guys afraid to stick up for yourself???
Does anyone really know what happened? Either at Berea Midpark or at Trinity? Our kid switched to a MAC AAU team last year and there were definitely some things that felt off through the course of the spring. But he definitely was pulling in talent from the area. It seems like an AAU program on the rise. But with the things that were off, and prior to this news, we had made a decision that we wouldn’t be back for another season. Looks like we made a good call. And the comments about him talking badly about other programs rings true, I heard it myself. This always bothered me.