Tori Brooks returning to roots as East Lansing girls basketball coach
Tori Brooks helped lead the Holt girls basketball program to one of its most decorated seasons in nearly a half century.
Now she is returning to her roots.
Brooks was named the varsity girls basketball coach at East Lansing following two seasons leading the Rams. The move to East Lansing gives Brooks an opportunity to lead a program she once played in under longtime coach Rob Smith.
"I graduated from DeWitt, but I went to East Lansing from kindergarten all the way through my sophomore year and obviously helped coach there when my sister (Amelia McNutt) was there," said Brooks, whose name was Tori Klewicki-McNutt as a player and then as a coach for the Trojans. "My family is from there, I live in East Lansing now with my family and it's just the school that really made me who I am and the community that made me who I am. To be able to go back and now lead that program and just be a part of the community I grew up in means a lot to me."
Brooks replaces Grace Whelan as East Lansing's coach. The Trojans went 4-16 and finished fifth in the CAAC Blue in their lone season under Whelan.
Brooks earned second team all-state honors in Division 1 as a coach this winter following a season where she guided Holt to a 22-5 mark that included a share of the CAAC Blue title and district and regional titles. The regional championship was the first for Holt since 1975.
"I owe Holt everything," Brooks said. "They gave me an opportunity with not having any experience and they were welcoming me with open arms. The athletic department, athletic director Chris Bishop and all my assistants like Trafford Hannon ― they truly helped me become the coach that I am. I had a really good team and obviously good players. That obviously helps a lot.
"That community and those girls were able to buy in to my style of coaching. I know that's not easy to do, but I was able to instill things that I learned from Rob Smith and (DeWitt's) Bill McCullen over there."
The mission for Brooks at East Lansing will be to make the Trojans a regular factor in the CAAC Blue like they typically were under Smith. She made that known to the players when meeting with them for the first time Tuesday.
"Two years ago they made the quarterfinals and last year maybe wasn't the year they exactly wanted to see, but my expectations really don't change," Brooks aid. "We should always be competing for a CAAC Blue championship. I told the girls we should be striving to win a district and if we go farther than that it's always great. At a minimum, I'm going to hold them to the same type of standards that I held my Holt players to."
Contact Brian Calloway at bcalloway@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @brian_calloway.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: East Lansing hires Tori Brooks to lead girls basketball program
