Where Are They Now? Chris McMahon
Roosevelt High School: Basketball: 1995-8
May 20, 2009
Recently, Roosevelt graduate Chris McMahon accomplished a professional goal of his, and in the process he saw a dream come true.
“My goal was always to be a 4A head coach,” said the newly named varsity boy’s basketball coach at Roosevelt. “And in the back of my mind I always thought that if it could be at Roosevelt, that’d be a dream come true.”
McMahon returns to his alma-mater after a three year reign as the head coach at Saydel. Prior to his time there, he spent five years at Hoover working numerous coaching positions, and one year as a sophomore assistant at Roosevelt.
His coaching roots go back as far as his junior year in high school, when he coached a team of kids, who were just about his own age, at Beaverdale Little League. He also coached young hoopsters at Roosevelt basketball camps during his junior and senior seasons of high school while he was a member of the varsity squad. He was a member who knew his role on the team.
“I was pretty much a role player on varsity. I played minimal my junior year, and played a little more my senior year, I started a little bit,” McMahon said.
What’s most impressive about McMahon’s high school basketball career was not his stats, but his usefulness. He played three different positions, the two, the three and the four. And at five-foot-ten, he’s one of the smallest three or four-man you’d ever see. It was his knowledge of the playbook that allowed him to be so eclectic as a player.
“We didn’t have a lot of size on that team,” McMahon said. “One of my strength’s was that I knew all the offensive plays from all five spots, so they just put me wherever,”
That type of knowledge as a player undoubtedly was a clue into what he could and would be doing after his playing days were done.
Coaching.
“My parents are both educators, my dad coached football, I’ve always kind of known my career path. I wanted to be an educator and a coach, it’s in my blood,” McMahon said.
His ascent from Beaverdale Little League to Roosevelt assistant sophomore coach to Hoover and Saydel and now back to his alma-mater has not been perfect. And there are some parts of this job that can seemingly tug at the heart strings.
The decision to leave one group of kids at Saydel for another at Roosevelt was not an easy one for McMahon.
“I was at Saydel to build a program and teach. I did that,” McMahon said. “The hardest part was leaving the kids at there. They were pretty disappointed, and I kind of expected that. I just tried to tell them that this was a big opportunity for me professionally, and they’re staring to understand now.”
It’s quite obvious that the decision to leave Saydel was a very difficult one for McMahon. He still loves his players at there, and claims that this is just another part of life.
“For them it’s another life lesson. It’s a thing that people do is move on,” McMahon said. “But they're going to be fine, they’ll have a great senior season and they’ll all go on to be successful people. I have nothing but confidence in them.”
His players have left a mark on him much like his mentors have since he began coaching while in high school. McMahon can name three men in particular that have influenced him more than anyone else during his rise in the coaching community.
The first of those three men is current Johnston head coach Bobby Sandquist, who McMahon assisted at Hoover in 2002-3. The second is current Hoover head coach Charles Zanders, who McMahon worked both indirectly and directly with during his five years with the Huskies. And the third is current Southwestern Community College head coach Mike Holmes, who was McMahon’s varsity coach at Roosevelt.
“With coach Sandquist I really learned all of the components it takes to build a winning program, from the bottom up. With coach Zanders, his ability to motivate is second to noone,” McMahon said. “I learned a lot from him as far as motivation goes. Coach Holmes was definitely a technician of the game, very detailed. So I learned a lot of technical details from him.”
McMahon will have his kids at Roosevelt playing ball no more than a week after school ends. He’s motivated to make his alma-mater great.
“Right now I’m definitely where I want to be,” McMahon said. “My focus is restoring the tradition to Roosevelt basketball and seeing if we can make it a consistent competitor.”
TJ Rushing, High School Playbook
P.S.
Coach McMahon on coaching against Zanders and Sandquist next season…. “It may be a little awkward at first. But to honest we’re going to have our hands so full just playing their teams, that getting caught up with who I’m coaching against should be the last thing on my mind.”
McMahon received his teaching degree from Grandview in 2003. He was coaching as Hoover and getting his degree simultaneously. He has been teaching World History at Lincoln, Hiatt, North and Saydel since.
McMahon’s assistant coach will be former North head coach and Hoover assistant Chad Eltjes, who he met while coaching at Hoover in 2004.
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