Long time coming: U Sports basketball season sees nine minority head coaches
TORONTO — Charles Kissi has guided Brock’s men’s basketball team to an undefeated season so far, and his team holds down the No. 2 spot in this week’s Canadian university rankings.
But Kissi still gets mistaken for anybody but the Badgers’ head coach.
Chris Cheng assembled a Nippising squad from scratch when he was hired as the program’s inaugural head coach in 2013, and boasts a substantial background with both Canada and Ontario Basketball’s youth programs. Yet the Filipino coach consistently gets confused for the team manager or therapist.
“I’m Asian, and not very tall,” Cheng said. “So they’ll come up and say ‘Where’s the head coach?’ ‘I am the head coach.’”