The only job Lance Brasher wanted after graduating from UL-Monroe in 2008 was to coach, and there was only one job available around here that August – as an assistant basketball coach at Grant High School.
He applied for the job, got hired and held the job for three weeks. That’s when his boss quit for a better-paying job up north (for his wife), and Lance William Brasher, in his rookie year in coaching, was suddenly promoted to head coach.
No problem. The former star guard for Peabody and ULM guided the Grant Cougars to 23 victories, ending with a last-second loss to No. 7 seed DeRidder in the second round of the playoffs.
Now in his 18th year of coaching, at his third different job, the 40-year-old Brasher is the hottest prep basketball coach in town and among the best in the state. His Class 5A Trojans from Alexandria Senior High have won 14 of 15 games, including an impressive 74-56 victory over Class 4A power and cross-town rival Peabody in their most recent outing before a packed gym at ASH last Friday night.
Notably, he won the coaching chess match Friday against his former high school mentor, 76-year-old Naismith Hall of Fame coach Charles Smith. The Trojans were trailing by three after the first quarter but by the time they were finished three quarters they held a 20-point lead.
“I told our guys before the game I think we’ve got the better team,” said Brasher, “but it’s going to come down to who manages the distractions better, and how we react to the runs Peabody is going to go on. And against Peabody, you cannot turn the ball over since they get most of their points off turnovers and rebounds off the glass.”
ASH kept its turnovers to a minimum until it built a 24-point lead and it won the rebounding battle against a Peabody team that Brasher thinks is “the best defensive and offensive rebounding team in the state.”
I wondered if the big victory by the student over his teacher might’ve been a “passing of the torch” scenario, but Brasher put the brakes on such talk.
“Let’s not go there,” he said. “Coach (Smith) is like family. Not only did I play for him, he came to my wedding and danced at my wedding with his wife. My grandfather (Bubba Brasher) asked him to be a pallbearer at his funeral. He’s always been in my life, and Ked (Smith, Charles’ son), too, who was coaching at ULM when I played there.”
Plus, coaching has been part of Brasher’s family for years. His parents, David and Debbie, are former basketball coaches. His sister, Kelli, who played for Peabody, Nicholls State and LCU, after a break of a few years, is back coaching at Minden High School. She had coached previously at Grant, Winnfield and Ruston.
A husband and father, Brasher’s athletic DNA extends to each of his and Brittany’s four children, ages 10-5 – the oldest three playing two sports.
Lance played three years at Peabody, including the 2004 season, when he and John Ford led Coach Smith’s Warhorses to a perfect 41-0 season, a state championship and a No. 5 national ranking. He was the salutatorian of his senior class that year. At ULM he was a 40-percent shooter from the field and hit 70 percent from the line, averaging close to 9 points and 2 assists per game over three seasons.
Coaching his first year or two at Grant against his former prep coach stirred some odd feelings, being in the opposite huddle, said Brasher, but in the years since, at Tioga and ASH, there has been some mutual familiarity with game strategies that make for intriguing matches between the two coaches.
“I try to implement some of the things Coach Smith does with my coaching,” Lance said. “I’d be a fool not to, considering he’s not just any Hall of Fame coach but the Naismith Hall of Fame. On the other hand, I’ve got to be me. I can’t be Charles Smith, nor will I try.
“When I first started coaching, I wore a coat and tie to games like he does,” Lance continued, “but I can’t do that. It’s not me.”
The common ground between them is their competitive zeal. Brasher was quick to see that in Smith while playing for him.
“Every single day of practice, every single drill, every summer league game, he intended to win and win by a substantial amount,” he said. “I was like that, too. Our mentalities are the same. We don’t like losing possessions, quarters, let alone games. That’s when I realized I had met somebody just as competitive if not more competitive than me.”
Think about when Brasher took over the job at ASH, which was never known as a basketball school and, even during some sparkling seasons had the misfortune of being in the same league with – and thus overshadowed by — Peabody.
“When I took the job,” said Brasher, “I told the media that my goal was to win a district championship and a state championship, and they laughed at me and told me it was impossible.”
In his first season at ASH, 2019-20, Brasher guided the Trojans to a 32-7 record and the school’s first state basketball championship. The impossible became not only possible but achievable. The Trojans have made the playoffs in five of the last six years. With 6-foot-8 senior center Tyshawn Duncan, the state’s No. 1 basketball prospect for the Class of 2026 (bound for UL-Lafayette) and 6-3 senior power forward Jarvel Bordelon (NAIA’s Texarkana) leading the way, a deep playoff run looks possible.
Considering what Brasher can make of “impossible” scenarios, no telling what he might do with the possible.