Mickey McConnell’s road to following Randy Bennett as the new men’s basketball head coach at Saint Mary’s has roots dating back to the days his grandfather played minor league baseball against a future Hall of Fame slugger.
McConnell, who turns 37 this month, was the West Coast Conference Player of the Year with the Gaels in 2011 and returned to campus eight years later to join Bennett’s staff. He was promoted to associate head coach before the 2022-23 season and the Gaels have won or shared the league’s regular season title ever since.
Now he slides over to the big office in Moraga, where his assignment is to continue what Bennett achieved over 25 remarkable seasons when he posted 589 victories, won seven West Coast Conference regular season titles and four more league tournament crowns, and led the Gaels to 12 NCAA Tournament appearances.
The Saint Mary’s brass, with Bennett’s enthusiastic endorsement, handed McConnell keys to the program last month after Bennett returned to his home state to become the head coach at Arizona State.
Way back in 1950, Dick McConnell was a slick-fielding shortstop with his hometown Topeka Owls of the Class C Western Association. Mickey Mantle, just 18 years old at the time, hit 26 home runs that season for league rival Joplin, and became a player the McConnell family followed as he blossomed into a Hall of Famer with the New York Yankees.
Dick’s grandson Richard Barton McConnell was born 39 years later — long after Mantle hit the last of his 536 home runs — but from the start answered to the nickname Mickey. “Growing up, we were all in on baseball and basketball,” Mickey recalled. “I heard a lot of Mickey Mantle stories, mostly from my Dad, and I was a Mickey Mantle fan just kind of by nature.”
The two sports were a constant through generations of the McConnell family. Mickey’s grandfather was a high school classmate of coaching icon Dean Smith and played basketball (and football) for the Washburn University Ichabods, where he later was inducted into the Division II school’s athletic Hall of Fame. Dick McConnell went on to compile what was then a state-record 776 victories — and four Arizona state titles — as a high school basketball coach in Tucson.
His son Rick, Mickey’s father, followed in his footsteps. After helping the University of Arizona capture the 1977 College World Series, Rick McConnell began coaching basketball and he won his 700th game at Dobson High in Mesa this season. Both men are members of the Arizona high school basketball coaches association Hall of Fame.
Mickey McConnell played for his dad at Dobson and set school records for career points and assists before landing a scholarship to play at Saint Mary’s. The Gaels went 106-31 with two NCAA bids over his four seasons and, as a senior in 2011, McConnell hit the game-winning shot with 1.2 seconds left in a road victory over powerhouse Gonzaga.
He was a good enough baseball player that the Los Angeles Dodgers drafted him in the 31st round after his senior year in college, despite having not played the sport since high school. “I don’t know exactly how that happened. It was a huge surprise,” said McConnell, part of a 2011 MLB draft class that also included the likes of Gerrit Cole, Javier Baez, Blake Snell, Mookie Betts and Marcus Semien. “I’d imagine they were drafted a little bit higher than I was,” he quipped.
Eventually, after playing pro ball for eight seasons in Spain, Italy, Germany and France with a brief stint in the G League, McConnell found his way to coaching. Those 700 wins his dad and grandfather accumulated? “I have to get to one first,” McConnell said.
Rick McConnell didn’t initially envision his son becoming a coach. “When he was younger, it wasn’t like he was over-analytical. He just kind of went out and played and he was really athletic,” his dad said. “In college, you start to play the point guard and you have a lot of responsibilities. I think that’s when it was kind of a natural fit for him.”
McConnell said his grandfather and especially his father were significant influences. His favorite team growing up was always his dad’s squad, Dobson High. “Every game day, every summer, everything was kind of built around that,” he said. “For me as a kid, there was nothing better. You get to go in the gym and be around the players. Go to the summer camp and all the games.”
McConnell’s older brother, Matt, also played for their father at Dobson before a minor-league stint in the Philadelphia Phillies’ organization. “We both got to grow up in that environment so it was really ingrained in us,” McConnell recalled. “And I was lucky enough to play for my dad.”
What he saw in his father’s teams was how relationships were cultivated. “They coached hard, they got on their guys, they were disciplined in what they were doing, but all of their players had so much respect and love for them,” he said of the years at Dobson. “That was kind of the thing I always noticed. It was a family.”
He found that same atmosphere at Saint Mary’s with Bennett, who also grew up in Mesa and played for rival Westwood High, albeit years before McConnell reached high school. Bennett inherited a 2-29 team from the year before he arrived and transformed it into a consistent winner Saint Mary’s fans could only imagine. One constant permeated the program both during McConnell’s playing days and when he returned as a coach.
“The No. 1 thing is his level of care for the program,” McConnell said of Bennett’s approach. “Everything he was trying to improve on was to make our players better, to make our program better. He was pretty relentless about that, making sure our guys were taken care of.
"Everyone talks about culture and family and all that stuff, but (Bennett) talked about it a lot with our guys. And it becomes a huge part of your success. You have to find guys that are all in together and can go through the ups and downs and can respond to adversity, and those are the things that he was constantly preaching to our guys.”
McConnell said he plans no wholesale changes to the way the program functions. Defense and rebounding — two areas that have elevated the Gaels — will remain priorities. Unselfish play on offense has been a trademark. McConnell learned a lot from the international game during his eight seasons in Europe, and hopes to fold some of that into the Gaels’ approach, and possibly play with a bit more tempo.
He does not take this opportunity for granted, saying he is grateful and excited. “Saint Mary’s is home. I spent my four years here, met my wife here and had an unbelievable experience, as a player but also just being a part of campus and a student,” he said. “For me, taking over a program like this, it’s a special place. I’m extremely lucky to be here.”
He also faces a daunting assignment as successor to the best coach in program history. Maybe it’s not quite like following John Wooden and his 10 national championships at UCLA, but Bennett set the bar high at a school that had reached the NCAA Tournament just three times previously, dating back to the event’s origin in 1939.
“There’s always pressure. I think that’s kind of the beauty of the profession,” McConnell said. “When you win 25 games every year, going into a season like this year there’s pressure. You won the conference three years in a row and there’s pressure to go do it again.”
Which they did, claiming a share of an unprecedented fourth straight regular-season title this past season. McConnell understands the task will be different from the head-coaching seat, but he’s confident he’ll have a great staff and will continue to bring in players who fit the Saint Mary’s mold.
Rick McConnell is excited for his son’s opportunity and isn’t worried the moment will be too big for him. “There’s a lot of pressure having the ball in your hands and getting pressed and trapped,” he said, reflecting on Mickey’s days as an all-conference point guard. “As a parent, you’re sitting up there nervous as heck. He has that personality that he really embraces (pressure) and I think that’ll really help him. He’s very calm and he kind of thrives on that.”
Father and son both will be directing their programs next season. But they will be 750 miles apart and Mickey looks forward to when his dad will be a regular in the crowd at University Credit Union Pavilion. “He still loves it,” McConnell said of the coaching bug. “I keep telling him he needs to retire, but he hasn’t listened yet. This might be the catalyst to get him to do it.”
So, when might Rick McConnell make the call to retire so he can be nervous all over again while sitting in the stands and watching his son’s team? “This might speed it up a little bit,” he said.