Begeman resigns after highly successful 15-year run as Unity girls basketball coach

MENDON, Ill. — Brad Begeman hit pause before he hit send.

At the end of last week, Begeman informed the Unity School District’s administration he planned to resign as the varsity girls basketball coach. Sunday night, following his team’s end-of-the-season banquet, Begeman told his players of his decision.

All that was left was to email his letter of resignation to the appropriate administrators. Tuesday morning, he did so, but not without that moment of hesitation.

“When I reread the letter I wrote, I had a really hard time hitting send,” Begeman said. “After I told the girls Sunday night, I felt like a weight was taken off my shoulders. I really did. But I really had a hard time hitting send today.”

Eventually, he did, bringing to an end the most successful coaching stint in the Unity girls basketball program’s history.

Begeman went 273-108 in 15 seasons at the helm, winning 15 games his first season and capping it with a school-record 29 victories this winter. In between, he led the Mustangs to five regional titles, one sectional championship and a second-place finish in the Class 1A state tournament in 2017.

It all was due to his daughter wanting to play in a 3-on-3 tournament in third grade.

A Unity graduate who played for Hall of Fame boys basketball coach Van Wilson, Begeman watched h’s daughter, Breanne, and her teammates struggle in that tournament. There was another team of Unity students in the same tournament, which sparked an idea.

“I was like, ‘Do you guys really want to play basketball?’ Well, we’re going to have to do something if we’re going to play basketball,’” Begeman said. “I had no intentions of coaching any kind of basketball, but we started in the YMCA league and then went to Barry and some other things.”

From there, he climbed the proverbial coaching ladder. Begeman was the fifth and sixth grade coach at Unity before taking over the seventh and eighth grade program. When his daughter was a sophomore with the Mustangs, the varsity job opened up.

The rest became history.

In his second season, the Mustangs won 20 games for the first time ever. In his third season, they won just the second regional title in program history. By his seventh season, they reached the state tournament for the first time.

“I had a lot of good players who wanted to play basketball,” Begeman said. “That makes it fun to coach.”

Along the way, though, life changed.

His job as a full-time sales manager for Fuller Fertilizer in Sutter, Ill., morphed into helping run the family-owned company in recent years. He also recently became a grandfather, changing where he needed to place his priorities with his free time.

Those were some of the reasons he ended up in front of his computer Tuesday morning hitting send on an email that brought an end to an incredible coaching run.

“I knew I was making the right decision,” Begeman said. “But I still had a hard time hitting send.”