‘This may be it’: John Bramlett resigns as Northwestern High School basketball coach
John Bramlett’s postgame address to his team on Wednesday, after Northwestern clawed out a double-overtime win at Spring Valley, was different than normal. His words felt a bit more final.
“I just really worked hard to make sure that anything I’ve ever done was about the kids,” Bramlett told The Herald. “That’s what I told my kids last night in the locker room after the game — that that’s what I want to be remembered for if I don’t ever coach again.”
Bramlett, after six years as Northwestern’s varsity boys’ basketball coach and 16 years as a coach in some capacity at the school, is resigning at the end of this season. He told The Herald that he’s not necessarily “hanging it up for good,” but he feels that stepping down right now is right for a variety of reasons.
Among those reasons: He wants to spend more time with his two daughters, Adriana and Izzy; his son, John Wilson; and his wife, Beth.
“My son is going to be a seventh grader next year at Dutchman Creek,” Bramlett said. “He is a pretty good basketball player. I can tell you he’s a lot better than I ever thought about being. And if he is fortunate enough to make the team over there, I want to be over there to watch him play.”
He added: “I’m going to take a year off and re-energize a bit. And you know what? This may be it. I may not coach again. But for right now, it’s best for me. … I need to take a look at my health mentally and physically. And be a dad. Be a husband.”
Northwestern’s season is not dead yet, technically. The Trojans can sneak into the South Carolina postseason if Spring Valley pulls off a longshot upset over Blythewood on Friday night.
And if that happens, Bramlett will be prepared: The ever-competitive coach — who intensely paces up and down the sideline during games; whose hair seems to gray by the quarter; who enjoys driving the team bus because he’s largely left alone and thus able to replay the game he just coached in his head without interruption — has already scouted who the Trojans would play next if the unexpected happens.
He’ll be in a competitor’s mindset, he said, until his season is officially over.
“If we don’t make the playoffs,” Bramlett said, “then I’ll have a different feeling about it all.”
‘I don’t know where I’m going in my life’
Bramlett’s start in education and coaching can be traced to when he was most lost, he said.
Bramlett was born and raised in Chester County. He graduated from Chester High School in 1988.
His dream, he said, was to graduate with an engineering degree from South Carolina. His father owned a construction company, and Bramlett, who spent many sweltering summers as a teenager on construction sites, planned to take it over when his father retired.
“I went down (to Columbia) and realized that it was not necessarily what I wanted to do,” Bramlett said. “I almost failed out my first semester.”
A few years later, without a college degree, Bramlett was substitute teaching in Chester County when he approached Chester’s basketball coach at the time, Rusty Pemberton, and asked him if he could get involved with the Cyclones’ basketball program.
“I went to him and just told him, ‘I don’t know where I’m going in my life,’” Bramlett recalled. “‘Can I help with basketball?’”
Pemberton offered to allow Bramlett to volunteer with the Chester team, Bramlett said, and that’s how he was introduced to his new profession and purpose.
His career took off from there: He finished his bachelor’s degree at Winthrop in 1995, got a teaching job in 1996 and spent the next 25 years in the Rock Hill School District — teaching and coaching at Sullivan and Saluda Trail middle schools before taking a job as junior varsity basketball coach at Northwestern in 2005.
In 2007, he earned the job as the Northwestern girls’ basketball coach and helped the program win four region titles (2009, 2010, 2013, 2015).
And in 2015, he became the boys’ coach.
Bramlett accumulated a record of 84-53 as varsity boys’ head coach, per MaxPreps. That includes the 2019-20 year, when Northwestern captured a region title and won more games (23) than it had the past 15 years (at least).
Bramlett, in total, has had 23 former players, women and men, go on to play college sports. He said he’s proud of what he’s helped build at Northwestern.
“It’s on good footing,” Bramlett said of the program. “Whoever gets the job, they’re getting a Cadillac.”
Bramlett runs ‘one of the best programs’ in SC
Next year, Bramlett isn’t “going anywhere,” he said.
He’ll still teach human geography at Northwestern. He’s even offered to help with the new basketball coach’s transition.
Northwestern has been accepting applications to fill the open position since last Friday, athletic director Jimmy Duncan told The Herald, and the coaching search is ongoing.
“I’m really thankful for the job that Bramlett has done at Northwestern,” Duncan said over the phone Thursday. He added, “He runs one of the best programs in the state. To lose a coach like him is difficult, but obviously we support him in his decision.”
This story was originally published February 12, 2021 at 8:29 AM.
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