WEST LEBANON — Whether it’s moving up the college basketball coaching ladder or setting up impromptu workouts for budding Upper Valley hoopsters, Braeden Estes firmly believes in the concept of networking.
Since graduating from Lebanon High School in 2015, Estes has used growing connections to begin a potential coaching career.
Four years as a manager for UNH coach Bill Herrion netted a graduate assistant’s position last winter at the University of South Florida, to which Estes will return for a second season, once coronavirus-related travel restrictions are eased and the USF campus reopens.
While there he will complete coursework toward a master’s degree in physical education programming.
But in the meantime, Estes’ relationship with the Lebanon Longhorns AAU program has led to something else: daily workouts with aspiring basketballers on the outdoor courts next to the former Seminary Hill School in Civic Park.
“You have to build relationships and experience and networks,” Estes said. “I’ve been fortunate to meet some people, who were very well-connected in the business, at a young age … but they can only help so much.”
Estes was, in his own words, “a really, really average high school player, to be honest.” But a young life spent in gyms and on basketball courts — he was among the Longhorns’ first young players when he was in fifth grade — established a desire to stay involved with the game.
Once at UNH, Estes joined coach Bill Herrion’s program as a manager.
What began with handing out towels and wiping sweat off the hardwood grew into more of a coaching role, with Estes eventually joining the Wildcats on the court to teach drills and the coaches in the film room to review the team’s performance and its upcoming foes.
“He’s a gym rat; he loves being in the gym,” Herrion said in a phone interview on Tuesday. “He’d come up to the office a lot after practice when the coaches were watching film and would watch with us. He had a really good eye for what was going on. I think he wanted to try to continue to coach.”
Herrion helped the process along by calling his younger brother Tom, an assistant coach at USF.
Estes was offered the graduate assistant opportunity and ran with it.
The Bulls play in the American Athletic Conference, a step up from UNH’s America East affiliation, and it showed.
“I’d say, right away, I got thrown into the fire,” Estes said. “I had the opportunity to be on the court every single day in practice. I was on the scout team, where you’re learning every other team’s sets that you’re playing against, learning to run them against your guys so they can get locked in on how to guard other teams.
“But I also live with the players; we have one apartment building that they all live in. It’s like dorm parents. I’m a bridge between the coaches and the players, and I keep building those relationships at all times.”
With youth sports restrictions in New Hampshire relaxed but a return to USF still up in the air, Estes’ networking efforts have kept him coaching.
He and Austin Whaley, another Longhorns and Lebanon alum, have begun daily youth basketball workouts at Seminary Hill.
Kids have ranged in age from fourth grade through high school and have come from as far away as Fairlee for an hour of basketball with Estes combined with an hour of exercises with Whaley, a strength trainer.
Estes said he used email contacts through the Longhorns to inform families about the workouts last week.
An email netted nearly 30 signups in a half day, once again proving the value of a good network.
“The dream can change; he could be a lawyer or a senator,” Lebanon boys basketball coach Kieth Matte surmised. “He wanted to be a coach, and he’s working his butt off to be that. Coaching is all about networking, earning respect from people, and those people are your network.”
Greg Fennell can be reached at gfennell@vnews.com or 603-727-3226.