Joey Brooks was announced as an assistant coach on head coach Austin Claunch's inaugural UTSA staff in April 2024. In addition to on-court and recruiting duties, Brooks will be working at the forefront of UTSA men’s basketball NIL efforts as the program's general manager.
Brooks arrived in San Antonio following one year in a similar role at Coastal Carolina. Prior to that, he completed his second stint at Nicholls in 2022-23, after getting started with the Colonels while serving as an assistant coach for Claunch in the 2019-20 season – helping the squad to a 55-31 record and 40-15 Southland Conference mark and the 2021 Southland Conference Regular Season title during his tenure. After two seasons at Nicholls, Brooks joined Dedrique Taylor’s staff at Cal State Fullerton, helping the Titans to a magical 15-game turnaround that saw CSF shift from seventh in the preseason Big West predictions to winning the conference tournament and reaching the NCAA Tournament with a 21-11 record. In his time at Fullerton, the Titans’ defense improved in the rankings by 102 slots in effective defensive field goals percentage (dropping 3.8 percent), 143 slots in 2-point percentage defense (dropping 4.1 percent), and 140 spots in adjusted defensive efficiency.
“As a native Texan, there is an abundance of reasons to be extremely excited about the opportunity to rebuild a program hungry for sustained energy, effort and success,” Brooks said at the time of his hire. “Success starts with people and our number one task is to reinvigorate Roadrunner Nation and give alumni, fans and students a product to be proud of."
A 2013 Notre Dame graduate, Brooks also spent two years at Purdue as a graduate assistant. During his time with the Boilermakers, Purdue won a Big Ten Championship and made back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances, which included a trip to the Sweet Sixteen and the 2019 Elite Eight run. During that period, Brooks helped coach five All-Big Ten selections and two All-Americans – leading individual workouts with Carson Edwards, the Jerry West Award winner for the nation's top shooting guard.
A Houston native out of Strake Jesuit College Preparatory, Brooks was a four-year letterwinner playing guard for 80 games at Notre Dame under head coach Mike Brey. He was a two-time Big East Academic Honor Roll honoree and was named to the Big East All-Academic Team, also appointed by Brey to the Notre Dame Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC).
Before leaning into his coaching career, Brooks spent a year as a senior analytics specialist in addition to working four years with Pure Sweat Basketball (NBA skills trainer) and building up his skill set at the Marketing Arm (content strategist), Krossover Intelligence (basketball specialist, account executive, and business development assistant), John Lucas Enterprises (NBA/NCAA Player Development) and with IBM.
Notably, Brooks has personally trained or assisted in training over 15 players currently on NBA, G-League or EuroCup rosters.