Class AAA: The New Coaches of 2024-25

<!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Class AAA has a few more new coaches than Class AAAA, here are those names and what we know about them coming into the year. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>[player_tooltip player_id='2897741' first='Troy' last='Bell'] at Bloomington Kennedy. Bell is the former Holy Angels superstar that was an All American at Boston College and then a first round pick of the Grizzlies. He was coaching youth basketball in the Twin Cities until last year when he took over at his former school, AHA. After one year he left the Stars and is now the head coach at Kennedy.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Willie Braziel at Simley. Coach Braziel takes over a job that is close to where he lives and is a program that has some very good up and coming players in the junior, sophomore and freshmen classes. It's a group that is perfect for an incoming coach with experience of success like Braziel has. Willie comes to Simley from Columbia Heights where Braziel did a fantastic job over the past couple decades. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Collin Eckman of Little Falls. This is your hometown story right here...the former graduate of 2013 comes back to spend seven years teaching and coaching in the district he grew up in, and then takes over the head job. That is Eckman at Little Falls. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Kyle Giorgi at Hibbing. Giorgi has been at Nashwauk-Keewatin the past 10 seasons as their head basketball coach. Kyle now takes over at Hibbing which is a two class jump. Hibbing has some up and coming talent to work with although they won only four games last season. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Dedrick Jenkins at Columbia Heights. In what seemed like the most natural of progressions, Jenkins moves into the head coaching role at Heights after being a long time assistant at the school. Jenkins has also been a long time coach for the [program_tooltip program_id='2455790' first='Howard' last='Pulley'] Panthers at the 17u level doing a very respectable job as the Panther lead man. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Jimmy Mireri at Holy Angels. The latest coach of the Stars comes to AHA from Wayzata where Jimmy has been an assistant for several years. Mireri is from Fridley High School and he was a college athlete at CSP. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Lance Pettis at Big Lake. Pettis comes to Big Lake having had basketball experiences as an all league player at Owatonna, an honored player at Gustavus and he's been the head coach at Blaine up until this season. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Isaiah Robinson at Two Rivers. Robinson was a two time all conference player at the school he now takes over as head coach. Robinson was at Eastview last year and has been at Apple Valley and Wayzata in previous years. He also runs his own AAU program called Blue Chips which started up last year and had a very good first year.</p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Zach Towle at St. Paul Highland Park. After a distinguished career playing at Concordia Academy and then into college at CSP, Towle has been coaching at the division one coaching level for many years at a few spots including Garden City in Kansas and Otero in Colorado. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Bridge Tusler at Delano. Few people are walking into as good of a situation talent wise as Tusler. He takes over a top ten Tiger team that won 22 games last year and has [player_tooltip player_id='1560739' first='Max' last='Iversen'], [player_tooltip player_id='1582111' first='Jake' last='Schultz'], and [player_tooltip player_id='2103353' first='JJ' last='Longstreet'] returning. Bridge is a former player at Osseo who has also coached at Monticello. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Frank Webster at Minneapolis Edison. Webster is an elementary teacher in Minneapolis and he moves into the head coaching role at Edison after many years of coaching in the Twin Cities as an assistant in various places. He's also spent time coaching at Bethel and now takes over for Ahmil Jihad. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Trevor Walton at North Branch. Walton has been at STMA as an assistant in recent years and he's done an outstanding job running the Minnesota Rush program at both middle school and high school levels of spring and summer play. This will be Walton's first years as a high school head coach but he's coached players this age as a head 17u coach before so the experience of coaching is there at the age. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph --> <!-- wp:paragraph --> <p>Robbie Whitney of St. Francis. Whitney is going home again! Robbie played at St. Francis and then returned as an assistant at the school before moving over to New Life Academy and helping them to state two times. Last year he was a grad assistant at Augustana and now he's back at St. Francis as the head man. </p> <!-- /wp:paragraph -->