Suffield girls basketball coach Wayne Patterson is stepping down from his role following this year's NEPSAC playoffs. Assistant Mike Welsh will take over the head coaching position next season, Suffield announced on Tuesday. This was a planned move that will have Patterson remain on staff as co-athletic director. He has spent the last 19 years...
Suffield girls basketball coach Wayne Patterson is stepping down from his role following this year's NEPSAC playoffs. Assistant Mike Welsh will take over the head coaching position next season, Suffield announced on Tuesday.
This was a planned move that will have Patterson remain on staff as co-athletic director. He has spent the last 19 years coaching at Suffield, with previous stints at Longmeadow High and with the St. Mary (Westfield) boys team.
"I have been thinking about it," Patterson said. "I've been at it for 30-plus years, and with a team that has no seniors on it, I really felt it was a fair time to step aside and let Mike take over with, you know, a team that has a lot of potential next year. Let him get situated with a team that's very good, and start his recruiting process and get everything done, rather than kind of wait till next year."
Patterson surpassed 400 career wins on Feb. 21 against Westminster. In his 19 years, he has led the Tigers to 16 NEPSAC playoff appearances and four semifinal runs, plus a NEPSAC championship in 2008. The school recently honored Patterson by dedicating a new video board at their home Kinne Court in his name — a ceremony that surprised Patterson.
"I'm kind of a guy that likes to fly under the radar and was hoping I could just slip through the cracks and go off into the wilderness. But we had a sellout crowd, and a lot of family and and friends and ex-players from from all the schools that I coached at came back. So it was quite a surprise," he said.
This year, Suffield won its first 16 games and was the longest NEPSAC program to stay undefeated. The Tigers enter the postseason 19-2 as a No. 2 seed and will play No. 7 Berkshire in the Class B Large quarterfinals. Among their top players are a trio of juniors – Alannah Baehr (Colchester, Conn.), Sammi Santacroce (North Haven, Conn.) and Charlotte Theriault (Palmer, Mass.) — who will help usher in a new era under Welsh.
"It's just the right time for him to step in," Patterson said. "He recruited a lot of the players that we currently have on the team right now. He helped recruit them heavily. Like I said, it was just just the right time for me (and) for the changing of the guard. It's a different generation of players coming through here, and and I just think that Mike is the right person at the right time for the job."
