Brooks realizes college coaching dream

Less than two years after he was a student manager for the USC men's basketball team, Rob Brooks has fulfilled a dream by joining the college coaching ranks. He confirmed Saturday that he has accepted a position as an assistant coach at Jacksonville State.

Brooks, 24, is one of the youngest Division I assistants in the country and an inspiration for athletes competing with a prosthetic limb. Brooks played at Los Alamitos High with a prosthesis attached to his partially formed right leg.

His swift ascent through the coaching ranks is a testament to the influence of USC Coach Tim Floyd, who befriended Brooks when Floyd coached the Chicago Bulls and was inspired by a television story he saw about Brooks playing high school basketball despite his physical limitations.

Brooks served as a team manager under Floyd for two years before becoming an associate head coach alongside Babacar Sy in 2007 at Simi Valley Stoneridge Prep. Sy had worked as an assistant to USC assistant Gib Arnold when Arnold was coach at the College of Southern Idaho.

Now Brooks has joined the staff of Jacksonville State Coach James Green, a former Floyd assistant at Iowa State. The Gamecocks are hoping for a swift turnaround after finishing in last place last year in the Ohio Valley Conference.

But Brooks, who has always dreamed of coaching at the college or pro level, has already arrived.

--Ben Bolch
Photo: Brooks as a senior at Los Alamitos High. Credit: Karen Tapia-Andersen/LA Times