OUAZ Director of Athletics Kevin Steele is proud to announce Cale Brubaker as the Interim Head Men’s Head Coach. This appointment will be effective immediately.
“I am incredibly pleased to announce that Cale Brubaker has been appointed as Interim Head Coach of our Spirit Men’s Basketball program,” Steele said, “with every intent to remove the interim tag as soon as we complete some internal processes. Cale was an integral part of the most successful years in the history of this program. He is a gifted young man whose talent is only surpassed by his goodness as a Christian man. I am confident in Cale’s ability to continue the trajectory of the program that Matt Keeley built from scratch.”
Brubaker has been on the OUAZ staff since the fall of 2021, serving first as an assistant coach, and being promoted to Associate Head Coach this January. Brubaker has been on the staff for all three of the program’s appearances at the NAIA Men’s Basketball Championships, including the Fab Four run in 2023.
“I am excited to be named the Interim Head Coach at OUAZ,” Brubaker said. “What [former Head] Coach Matt Keeley did in building the program from the ground up is truly remarkable. Coming off three straight NAIA National Tournament Appearances, OUAZ is in a great position moving forward because of the great leadership and administration.”
Brubaker came to Surprise after spending five season at The University of Texas at San Antonio, serving as UTSA’s video coordinator. Prior to being promoted to the full-time video coordinator, he was the program’s graduate assistant, where he earned his Master’s in Educational Leadership.
Brubaker is no stranger to success, both inside and outside of the Spirit program. In Brubaker’s five years at UTSA, the program had the seventh-largest turnaround in NCAA Division I and had the nation’s highest-scoring backcourt.
A native of New Braunfels, Texas, Brubaker graduated from MidAmerica Nazarene in 2016 with a Bachelor’s degree in History. He was a four-year letterwinner (2013-2016) for the Pioneers men’s baseball program, where he led his teams to 91 wins, a pair of NAIA Fab Four appearances (2014, 2016), a conference tournament championship (2014), and a conference regular season championship (2016).
Brubaker will be just the second head coach, and first interim head coach, in OUAZ program history after Matt Keeley took a new position as the head coach at NCAA Division II Northwest Missouri State University.
https://ouazspirit.com/news/2024/4/14/brubaker-named-interim-mens-basketball-head-coach.aspx