There can be a lot of benefits to coaching high school athletics. You are able to teach the next generation how to play the game that you love. You get to watch them grow and see their game improve. Walter Brewer is the head boys basketball coach at Southeast High School. He says that the athletes are one of the main reasons that he enjoys coaching.

“The kids are why I do this,” Brewer said. “I really enjoy working with the kids and developing them into not just basketball players, but also great leaders, husbands, and fathers.”

Walter has been coaching since 1994 when he got his start at Douglass High School. Now along with coaching boys basketball at Southeast, he also is the head coach of the boys cross country team.

Though he enjoys coaching and is glad he entered the profession, Brewer says that being a coach was not his first plan. He had a loftier goal he wanted to achieve.

“Coaching was not something I wanted to get into,” he recalled. “I wanted to go to the NBA. Once that didn’t happen I kind of fell into coaching.”

Throughout his life, there have been coaches that have had an influence on Brewer and helped him become the person and the coach he is today.

“My college coaches really made an impact on my life,” he said. “I am forever grateful for them. Also, NBA coach Gregg Popovich is a coach that I really look up to. He does not care who you are, he is going to coach you hard. 

Winning on the court is great, but Brewer says that there is something that is even more special than seeing his guys win games. 

“Seeing my former players succeed in life makes me happy more than anything they’ve done on the court,” the coach stated.