Kentucky has hired Virginia Tech women’s basketball coach Kenny Brooks, Virginia Tech announced Tuesday. The deal is for five years, according to a person briefed on the matter.
Brooks was a big swing for Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart, who understood the importance of investing in a women’s basketball coach during this time of significant growth of the sport. Kentucky is also in the process of completing an $82 million renovation of the Memorial Coliseum, where the UK women’s team plays its home games, which is expected to be finished ahead of the 2024-25 season.
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The Wildcats are expected to make Brooks the third-highest-paid coach in the SEC behind LSU’s Kim Mulkey ($3.15 million per year) and South Carolina’s Dawn Staley ($3.1 million per year). While the exact dollar amount is not known, the contract will be more than the $1.1 million a year that Brooks was making at Virginia Tech. After leading the Hokies to their first ACC tournament title and Final Four appearance last season, Brooks signed a contract extension with Virginia Tech last July that would’ve kept him in Blacksburg through the 2028-29 season.
Brooks will replace Kyra Elzy, who was fired after four seasons on March 11 after the Wildcats finished this season 12-20 and failed to make the postseason for the second consecutive year. Virginia Tech’s season ended with a second-round loss to Baylor on Sunday night. However, the Hokies were playing without star center Elizabeth Kitley, who suffered a torn ACL in the team’s season-finale loss at Virginia on March 3.
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In 2016, Virginia Tech hired Brooks as its coach after the program had experienced just one winning season in the previous nine years. Slowly, he began to build the program. During the 2019-20 season, the Hokies reached double-digit conference wins for the first time since the 2003-04 season.
Brooks was responsible for recruiting and developing the best players in Virginia Tech history, including center Elizabeth Kitley (three-time ACC player of the year), point guard Georgia Amoore (2023 ACC tournament MVP) and Aisha Sheppard (Virginia Tech’s leading scorer and 2023 second-round WNBA draft pick).
Brooks was often considered a Virginia lifer in the women’s basketball coaching carousel. Born in Waynesboro, Va., he played college hoops at James Madison (Harrisonburg, Va.) from 1988 to 1991 and began his coaching career at Virginia Military Institute in 1994. He stayed there for four seasons before returning to James Madison as an assistant on the men’s team and then transitioned to the women’s side in 2002.
Brooks was promoted to head coach a season later, and spent 14 years at James Madison, leading the Dukes to the postseason in 11 years, including six NCAA Tournament bids.
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(Photo: Kevin Jairaj / USA Today)