Brian Barone’s coaching career gets new start at Butler Community College

The more basketball he watched over the years, the more Brian Barone’s mindset changed.

A good coach was a good coach. Didn’t matter where they were or what level they were on.

It’s a lesson Barone takes into his new job as the men’s coach at Butler Community College after spending the last 13 seasons as an assistant on the Division I level, including the last five at Wisconsin-Green Bay.

“I’ve been very fortunate to be around good basketball my whole life, with my family from a very young age,” Barone said. “I think, when I was younger, I kind of bought into the idea of you had to be at this type of school or this level or whatever, but I’ve come to learn there’s a lot more to it than that … it’s not about being Division I, Division II, Division III or juco.

“Some of the best coaches I’ve seen are guys you’ve never heard of in places you’ve never been to. As I matured as a coach and a person, I started to understand it wasn’t about where you’re at, it was about what you did.”

Barone, the son of former Creighton, Texas A&M and Memphis Grizzlies coach Tony Barone, was announced as Butler’s coach on June 20, completing a game of coaching musical chairs between Green Bay, Bradley and Butler.

It went like this: After Brian Wardle left Green Bay to become the coach at Bradley, Wardle hired Butler coach Mike Bargen to be his assistant at Bradley and Barone took over for Bargen at Butler.

Now say that three times fast.

And take into consideration that Wardle, Bargen and Barone were all teammates at Marquette in the late 1990s.

“You talk to each other, sure, but we’re not that good at moving the chess pieces around to have orchestrated it like that,” Barone said, laughing. “It wasn’t anything that was planned, it just worked out the way it did.”

Barone was a candidate to replace Wardle at Green Bay, but wasn’t one of the finalists for a job that ultimately went to Linc Darner.

“What I’ve been looking at the last year-and-a-half, what I’ve been trying to do, is become a head coach,” Barone said. “And when Green Bay decided to go in a different direction, I had to look elsewhere to get my own program, and that’s at Butler. That’s the opportunity in front of me, and my family and I are ready for it.

“It’s a smaller staff and a smaller budget, so I’m going to have to rely a lot on the relationships I’ve built, the connections I’ve made. I have experiences coaching at junior colleges and I know the Jayhawk (Conference) pretty well.”

Barone has experience in the Jayhawk Conference. He was an assistant at Garden City Community College for one season in 2002-03 before he left to become an assistant for then-Illinois State (and current Loyola) coach Porter Moser.

Barone and his wife, Mimi, and three young children plan on moving to El Dorado later this summer.

Bargen led Butler to two NJCAA Tournament appearances and one Region VI title in eight seasons.

“Like I said, it doesn’t matter what level I’m at as long as I have my own program,” Barone said. “Now it’s up to me to make the most of this opportunity. I feel like the future is wide open.”

This story was originally published July 10, 2015 at 4:42 PM with the headline "Brian Barone’s coaching career gets new start at Butler Community College."