The Wisconsin Badgers had some shocking news last week, as assistant Kirk Penney announced his resignation from the team to return to his native country of New Zealand. In accordance, the Badgers hired former star Brad Davison to be their next assistant coach, continuing their line of former players-turned-assistants.
For Davison, it was a dream come true. While the choice came easily to him, the corresponding steps did not, as the former guard was still playing overseas in Spain, having recently
moved his family overseas for his playing career.
But, when head coach Greg Gard came calling, he and his family decided to make the move back to Madison. After playing his final game, Davison and his wife quickly packed things up, headed over to Madison, and the former star was quickly in at practice last Thursday.
“So excited to be back. I’m so excited to be back in the program,” Davison said. “So excited to bring my family back to Madison. We have so many family members here and friends that feel like family. So the opportunity to come back here is a dream come true. And then the opportunity to serve this program and serve Coach Gard, especially, [it’s] been an incredible [opportunity that I’m] excited to be a part of.”
“Definitely been a long. Not long, but a crazy 48 to 72 hours. Started talking to Coach on Thursday, Friday. played my last regular season game on Saturday. It was also our first regular season game. On Sunday, told teammates, coaches, president, and management back in Spain. My family packed up our apartment that we just bought and got all squared away. And Monday, book tickets. They packed up Wednesday morning, flew out. Drive here last night, practice today. So it’s been moving quick. A whole new direction for my family. But again, I’ve always wanted to get back into college basketball and especially the coaching. This opportunity came, opportunity that we had to take advantage of. Not only a personal decision, but a family decision in terms of we’re so excited to come back and get this thing started.”
The process sprung along pretty quickly for Gard as well, who knew he had to move fast after Penney’s decision to leave.
“Once Kirk let me know that he was gonna go back, needed to go back to New Zealand, how this was going to play out, we had processing on campus to be able to get an emergency waiver, to be able to move right away,” Gard said. “So once that all became official, we had already had campus’s approval to be able to move quickly.”
“I always have a short list. I always have a list going somewhere. If there is an opening on staff, what do I need? And it’s not necessarily that you’re replacing the person. There was other people on my list, but Brad was the one that came to mind pretty quickly. Just looking at what our team needed and what, you know, our staff composition, what else can we add to our staff? And I felt somebody with his background, his youthfulness was important, his experience was important, and I felt that’s what would help our staff know.
“We’ve got a lot of experience on our staff. Guys that have been head coaches, have coached a lot, been here a while. So I felt it was important to obviously still be tethered to us in terms of. That’s really important composition of my staff over the years. There’s usually a connection, and a lot of it is to people that have been here. So those two combinations really kind of led me quickly to Brad. And I’ve had conversations with him over his whole career. He’s always wanted to come to me, you know, and that’s been a goal for him. But he wasn’t going to play forever. And the opportunity came about where he wanted to do it, and I talked to him about it and, you know, it didn’t take long.”
With his experience as a player and current state as a coach, Davison won’t have the same role that Penney had. But Gard isn’t expecting that.
“Brad’s role will be different,” Gard said. “Brad brings a different perspective as a player. So I think he can help us in a lot of ways with just helping with education with players and relationships with players. I think he’ll be dynamite on the road recruiting. He’s got a phenomenal personality, phenomenal eye for talent. And he’s so full of energy, and I’d rather have a young coach mold and not have to wind him up. While I’m going to have to maybe settle [him] down a little bit, which I’d much rather have it that way than have someone that I have to constantly motivate and push. Not that Kirk wasn’t great in his own right. In his path of what Kirk did, Brad’s going to create his path as a coach.”
Wisconsin will definitely have a void to fill with Penney gone. But, the New Zealand native is still finding ways to be involved with the team, and they have a program legend back in the mix with Brad Davison.
