Sean C. Morgan
Brandon Gaskey has Husky blood running through his veins and that’s particularly true on the basketball court, where he will take over as head coach this season for Sweet Home.
Gaskey, one of a line of legendary athletes for the Huskies, was himself a member of the 1993 state championship squad coached by Ed Nieman.
“It’s always been my first love,” said Gaskey, who also serves as an assistant football coach. “I love football too, but basketball was my sport for sure. I loved Sweet Home basketball. I grew up watching it in that old gym.”
After graduation in 1994, Gaskey attended Linn-Benton Community College, and spent several years volunteering at the Sweet Home Fire Department. He was interested in the fire service and started down that path, but he didn’t like the medical side of being a firefighter. He planned to become a teacher and transferred to Western Oregon University, but he started a family and went to work. Since then, he has worked for various employers, mostly recently in maintenance at ATI Wah Chang in Albany for the past 15 years.
After high school, he watched ball games, he said, and he’d wonder at the choices of the coaches, thinking he might do it differently. He got the itch to coach and joined Coach Mark Risen’s staff at SHHS.
Since then, he has coached basketball off and on. He worked with head coaches Tim Little and Kostanty Knurowski, and he helped a little with Tim Porter’s teams.
His son Kyler Gaskey, a senior, played junior varsity his freshman year and varsity his sophomore year before being forced to sit out with an injury last year.
Gaskey, 39, also has helped coach junior high hoops with Ed Seiber and he has coached baseball with Nick Tyler.
Gaskey is concerned about relatively short tenures for recent coaches, he said. “I always wanted them to have the same stability I had with Ed Nieman.”
Nieman had a program that changed little, mainly just fundamental basketball, from year to year, Gaskey said.
He doesn’t see himself as the long-term head coach though, he said. He believes a coach should also be a teacher, so Drew Emmert is assisting him this year. Emmert, who played at Heston College and then at Graceland University after graduating from Sweet Home, will sub this year as he seeks a permanent job in Sweet Home and ultimately, Gaskey hopes, a long-term basketball coaching position.
Emmert “is definitely the guy waiting in the wings,” Gaskey said. Emmert will coach JV this year and assist with varsity. Scott Bozich will round out the coaching staff with the freshmen.
Gaskey is looking forward to working with this year’s team, he said.
“We obviously have some extremely talented guards coming back with Hunter Jutte and Ryan Adams.”
They were part of a team that upset Gladstone in the play-in round last year before being eliminated by eventual champion Philomath in a tight first-round playoff game.
While he’s going to enjoy coaching his son, Gaskey said he’s also looking forward to coaching the others, who have all spent plenty of time staying at his house.
“They’re a good group of kids,” he said, referring to Kevin Seiber, Adams, Bryson Mitten, Jutte and Brett Blachly. He knows all of their parents, and attended school with them or their family members.
A perimeter player himself, Gaskey likes the guard-focused run-and-gun game, but he prefers a more traditional approach.
“I’m a little more old-school,” he said. “I like run-and-gun, but even more, I want to control the floor.”
Every possession is worth something, he said, and he hates to see one wasted.
He wants to make a defense work “until the opportunity presents itself,” Gaskey said. He would like to start developing a big man in the post position, something that Sweet Home hasn’t had in awhile.
On defense, his team will mainly run man-to-man, Gaskey said. The Huskies may settle into a zone, but it’ll always be wrapped around man-to-man principles with a goal of making opponents take low-percentage shots.
Gaskey said he plans to pick the brains of his players and borrow what he can from previous coaches too to shake things up, such as the odd defense that befuddled Gladstone last year.
He wants to capitalize and revitalize Sweet Home’s old reputation for toughness.
“Regardless of what kind of team you are, we’re going to be tougher than you on the court.
“Wins and loses, they’re important, but more importantly, I want to see us compete every game.”
The Huskies represent their school and the Sweet Home community too, he said, and “I want that light to shine.”
Gaskey is married to Sarah Gaskey. Their children are Kyler, a senior, and Cade, who is in sixth grade.