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After guiding the program to one of its best three-year stretches, Bradley-Bourbonnais head boys basketball coach Ryan Kemp will be handing the keys to the program over.
Kemp told the Daily Journal over the weekend that he will be resigning from his head coaching role after leading the Boilermakers to a 21-8 record this season and a 58-28 record over the course of his three-year tenure. Those 58 wins are the most the program has had under one coach in a three-year span since they won 59 games under the late Vern Sloan from 1993-94 through 1995-96.
The assistant principal at the school, Kemp, who had coaching experience as an assistant at Dwight and Manteno and was head baseball coach at the same two schools, as well as Bishop McNamara, never planned on serving the head role at Bradley-Bourbonnais. But when Joe Lightfoot and the school parted ways in 2022, Kemp took on a role that he ended up loving.
“I did not come to BBCHS to be a head basketball coach,” Kemp said. “It just kinda worked out like that. Things happen for a reason and the opportunity presented itself. In my head, I wondered if I could coach at the [Class] 4A level without any previous experience. The highs were high and the lows were low. I was able to improve each year with hard work, a great and experienced assistant Coach [Eric Long] and kids that have fun coming to the gym and working.”
There was plenty of excitement around the program over Kemp’s three seasons and 58 wins. They won the Red Division of the SouthWest Suburban Conference in 2022-23, scored one of the program’s biggest wins ever with an upset of top-ranked and eventual Class 4A State champion Homewood-Flossmoor in 2023-24 and saw all-state center Nick Allen break the school’s career scoring record this season.
Kemp said that the win over the Vikings, a 65-61 home victory Jan. 23, 2024, was his coaching highlight, because of how jubilant of a moment it was and also how well it embodied his favorite aspect of being a coach.
“The most gratifying part of coaching for me is when players give great effort using the skills they have worked so hard on, and the coaching staff works behind the scenes to prepare a game plan that is executed by everyone,” Kemp said. “Everybody wins. It’s beautiful, contagious and addicting.”
The father of Bradley-Bourbonnais graduates Avery, a December 2024 graduate and volleyball player at Northwest Missouri State University, and Anthony, a redshirt freshman on the men’s basketball team at Illinois Wesleyan University, as well as eighth grader Andrew, coach Kemp said a primary factor to his resignation was so that he could be more present for Anthony’s college basketball career.
He also was Anthony’s head coach for the Boilers, an experience that neither of them will forget. Ryan Kemp said coaching his son, and his son’s friends, was one of the greatest possible joys as a head coach, and it also came with its own unique set of challenges.
“On one hand it was an addition to what relationship we already had,” Ryan Kemp said. “It strengthened it, made it more special, it made it worthwhile to put in all the time and all the hard work. On the other hand, it’s tougher, like coaching a bunch of your own kids.”
While he’ll be spending more time in college gymnasiums over the next couple years, Kemp plans on remaining a familiar face at Bradley-Bourbonnais' Donald K. Turner Gymnasium, not just to watch Andrew play, but also because there just aren’t many other basketball atmospheres like it on a game night.
“The environment at a basketball game at BBCHS is second to none in this area and for 95% of the teams we play,” Kemp said. “Almost every team we play hates coming down to play in our gym, but they also love the environment and the intensity. The opposing teams feed off of the energy as well, and that makes it even tougher for us at times. We are everybody’s biggest game when we play at home.”