Brad Simpson, Wakefield High’s longtime boys’ basketball coach, will be inducted into the Massachusetts Basketball Coaches Association’s Hall of Fame this Sunday at the College of the Holy Cross.
Simpson was Wakefield’s head coach for 33 years, from 1988 to 2020. He also served as an assistant for 17 years prior to that.
In his 50 years of coaching in Wakefield, Simpson’s teams accomplished plenty. As a head coach, his overall record was 359-304. Twenty of his 33 teams qualified for the state tournament and his overall record in the tourney was 26-17.
Simpson’s team in 2016, the year he was named MIAA Coach of the Year, was certainly strong, but of course, his best team was 20 years prior when Wakefield went undefeated to win the 1997 state championship with a 74-66 win over St. Bernard’s the first and only Wakefield High boys’ basketball state title.
Simpson was named the MBCA Coach of the Year and the Boston Globe Coach of the Year in ’97. He was also named the National Federation of High School Coaches Association Sectional Coach of the Year in 2016, which includes teams from New England and New York.
On Sunday, Simpson will be inducted with fellow 2022 inductees, David Fazio of Andover High School and Lance Dottin of Cambridge Rindge and Latin.
A full story of Simpson’s coaching career in Wakefield will appear at a later date.
