A detailed look inside Volcano Vista boys basketball from its architect

• Story byAlbuquerque Journal, N.M.
• A detailed look inside Volcano Vista boys basketball from its architect

Greg Brown peeled the curtain back a little Thursday on the dynasty he captains.

Brown, the Volcano Vista High School boys basketball coach, attracted a standing-room only crowd of coaches as a featured speaker as the annual summer conference for the New Mexico High School Coaches Association, the New Mexico Officials Association, the New Mexico Activities Association and the New Mexico Athletic Directors Association got underway at the Crowne Plaza hotel near the Big-I.

As always, a large number of the state’s head coaches, in every sport, have convened for the multi-day conference.

Brown, who has led the Hawks to five straight Class 5A state titles and six overall, offered an hour-long, detailed glimpse into the particulars of how Volcano Vista’s program functions throughout a calendar year. Among the big crowd jammed into this room Thursday was even retired Cliff Hall of Fame coach Pete Shock.

“That guy wins because he’s prepared to win,” Albuquerque High boys coach Leroy Barela said. “He takes the talent that walks through the door and prepares them.”

Does Brown’s name and reputation carry any weight? Consider that there were multiple coaches inside this room who already have multiple state championships to their names, but were still keen on perhaps learning something new.

“There’s no prescribed single way to do something, and Greg has something that’s been really good for his program at Volcano,” said Sandia Prep boys coach Damian Segura, who led St. Pius to multiple state titles during his time with the Sartans. “If we can take one or two things from that as coaches, that’s something we can implement. … I’m as creative as vanilla ice cream. Everything we do is from someone else.”

It’s no secret that coaches frequently borrow from other coaches when they come across something they feel will assist the construction of their own program.

What Brown did Thursday was take his rapt audience on a trip through an entire season — how the Hawks approach their offseason, their regular season, and their postseason. There was much detail along the way as it pertains to coaching up individual players while cultivating the overall team bubble.

“He was very thorough in how he did it,” Barela observed. “When he outlined everything. … it was kind of like, we do the same thing, but it wasn’t as detailed.”

Culture building as it relates both the on-court product and fostering a chemistry between players was a repeated theme for Brown, a trait he inherited as a player at Albuquerque Academy from his Hall of Fame father Mike, the former coach of the Chargers.

“He coached culture, and showed my brother (Danny, Sandia’s head coach) and I that you can coach culture and it’s important to do so,” Brown said.

Greg Brown won three championships as a player at Academy, and he’s won seven as a coach, including one with Manzano before he joined Volcano Vista when it first opened.

Volcano’s unique sense of culture is one of the unheralded aspects of its ongoing dynasty.

“That’s the beauty of culture,” Brown said. “When you say culture, it’s very broad. It’s going to mean something different to every coach. We got to explain what it means to us, how we teach it, and lean into it in every segment of the season.”

And Brown’s thorough forensic outline of his program was a reminder to some of his rivals about why Volcano Vista thrives.

Said Barela: “I’ve coached against him the last four years, and you can see the way his kids perform on the floor is based on the way he has them prepared. It’s incredible.”

ON TAP: The summer conference continues Friday and Saturday.

One of this year’s keynote speakers is NFL referee Brad Rogers, who is scheduled to speak on Friday morning.

Bill Blankenship, the former head football coach at the University of Tulsa and now the head football coach at Owasso High in Oklahoma, is the other keynote speaker. He will be going on Friday morning just after Rogers.

The NMHSCA will hand it out its annual awards on Friday afternoon. Saturday’s activities revolve exclusively around officials.

NOTES: La Cueva guard Drew Bramlett will not play for the Bears this upcoming season, his father A.J. confirmed Thursday. Bramlett, one of the state’s elite guards, instead will be joining Albuquerque’s ABC Prep in a blow to La Cueva’s roster. … New UNM women’s basketball coach Amy Eagan was among the presenters during the coaches clinic on Thursday.

James Yodice covers prep sports for the Journal. You can reach him at jyodice@abqjournal.com or via X at @JamesDYodice.