William Jasper Brooks (October 13, 1922 – November 8, 2010) was an American

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

and

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

coach who is best known for developing the

University of North Carolina at Wilmington The University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW or UNC Wilmington) is a public research university in Wilmington, North Carolina. It is part of the University of North Carolina System and enrolls 17,499 undergraduate and graduate students eac ...

athletics program from a junior college to a Division I school. Brooks graduated with a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...

from Atlantic Christian College in 1948. In 1951, he was hired by Wilmington College (now UNCW) as their

athletic director An athletic director (commonly "athletics director" or "AD") is an administrator at many American clubs or institutions, such as colleges and universities, as well as in larger high schools and middle schools, who oversees the work of coaches an ...

, basketball coach, baseball coach, and chairman of the health and physical education department. He directed the baseball team to a pair of national junior college baseball championships in 1961 and 1963 and also took the basketball team to the national tournament. In 1975, he was named NAIA National Coach of the Year and was inducted into the National Junior College Baseball Coaches Hall of Fame in 1990. Brooks became the first individual associated with UNC Wilmington to be inducted into the

North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame The North Carolina Museum of History is a history museum located in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina. It is an affiliate through the Smithsonian Affiliations program. The museum is a part of the Division of State History Museums, Office of Archives ...

in 1991.

References

1922 births 2010 deaths Basketball coaches from North Carolina People from Wilson, North Carolina UNC Wilmington Seahawks athletic directors UNC Wilmington Seahawks baseball coaches UNC Wilmington Seahawks men's basketball coaches Wake Forest Demon Deacons football players Baseball coaches from North Carolina {{US-basketball-coach-stub