‘Your name is on it’: Improbable path to March Madness for Wichita coach Jay Bradley
Division I basketball coaches aren’t supposed to come from South City, a neighborhood in south Wichita, at least not in the mind of Jay Bradley Jr.
It was easy to do the wrong thing, but the work ethic instilled in him by his family kept him on the straight and narrow path. He remembers walking to the McDonald’s on South Hydraulic, where his mom worked the second shift, to enjoy ice cream cones in the afternoon after class let out at Anderson Elementary School.
Becoming a Division I basketball coach, winning a championship and experiencing March Madness in the city he was raised wasn’t a dream. It was too far-fetched.
That’s what made Wednesday so surreal to Bradley, who returned to his hometown as an assistant coach for No. 16 seed SIU Edwardsville, the Ohio Valley champions, ahead of Thursday’s 1 p.m. game at Intrust Bank Arena against top-seeded Houston.
“It means so much to me because there are young men and women who need to see people like us come from a neighborhood like that and make it out,” Bradley told The Eagle. “You heard a lot about how you’re not going to get out. There’s some stuff in the neighborhood that can pull you down. So it’s such a blessing to be in this position.”
In order to make it from South City to Division I, Bradley needed a different level of ambition, dedication and perseverance. Those qualities were instilled in him by his father, Jay Bradley Sr., who could tell his son had passion when he would wake up every morning and stay glued to the television to watch SportsCenter.
The son became so infatuated with basketball that the father saved up enough money to pour a concrete slab in the family’s yard and installed a hoop for Jay Jr. and his sister to practice their games.
Before Jay Jr. began his high school basketball career at Heights, his father had a serious conversation with him.
“Everything we do, we do in excellence because our name is on it,” Jay Bradley Sr. said. “My parents instilled that in me that we worked hard for everything we want to achieve. We don’t expect things, we earn things. So that’s what I tried to instill in my children and grandchildren is to do everything to the best of your ability and with excellence. And always remember, your name is on it, always.”
By the time he graduated high school in 2011, Jay Jr. was a two-time state champion with a desire to continue his basketball career in the coaching ranks.
Just like his father taught him, Jay Jr. took pride in everything he did. He was willing to make the extra phone call, send the extra email and do the little things that not many others were willing to do. He graduated with distinction, then earned a Master’s degree in public administration.
In 2017, he officially started his college basketball coaching career at Quincy University, a tiny Division II school in Illinois — a far way from South City.
“Jay is just an unbelievable person, first and foremost. He is one of the most genuine people I’ve ever met,” said fellow SIU Edwardsville assistant Ryan Hellenthal, who hired Bradley as his director of operations at Quincy. “He just had this hunger to be successful. He volunteered for me and I called him to tell him he had the job and within 24 hours, he was in my office. That always stuck with me. I always thought that was pretty special.”
Volunteering at Quincy opened the door for an assistant coaching job at Odessa College, which then led to another assistant job at Clarendon College, another Texas community colleges. While living in Texas, Bradley also volunteered his time and made the lengthy drive to Houston to coach an AAU team for Cooz Elite, run by former Wichita State star P.J. Couisnard.
Like Hellenthal at Quincy, Couisnard was immediately struck by the work ethic of Bradley.
“I loved the fact that he was willing to put in the work,” Couisnard said. “And he’s such a family-oriented guy. He’s got a great family behind him. I remember one time he brought his whole AAU team to his house in Wichita and his dad barbecued for them and made sure all of the kids were fed and had a good spot to sleep.”
All of the sacrifices and hard work paid off in 2021 when Bradley was named the head coach at Northwest Kansas Technical College. The year before he arrived, the team won just three games — by the time he left, just three years later, the team won 16 games and was a competitive in the postseason.
He invested everything into his players and took pride in building relationships that stretched beyond basketball. Giving was always important in the Bradley family, as Jay Sr. often quoted from the bible, Luke 6:38, “Give, and it will be given to you.”
“It’s all about giving to people and I taught him that,” Jay Sr. said. “So you give and give and give and it will pay off. It really will.”
After grinding away in the lower ranks of college basketball for six years, Bradley broke through the Division I level this past summer. And to make the ride even more magical, SIUE won the Ohio Valley Conference tournament to punch its ticket to the Division I NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history.
Bradley hopes his story can inspire the next generation coming up in South City and also be a lesson that giving back does pay off.
“We didn’t have a lot growing up, but we had each other and that’s why we’re all about elevating our name,” Bradley Jr. said. “Family is such a big thing for me. Your last name means something because we do things the right way.
“Just seeing things come to fruition after all that my parents invested in me just to get here, it’s so big. I just want to glorify God through the way that I live and help young people do the same.”
This story was originally published March 19, 2025 at 4:29 PM.
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