User:Brady.timm2/Ian Mckeithen

Ian McKeithen
Ian McKeithen (1983-) is the head men's basketball coach at Doane University in Crete, Nebraska. He is the only current African American head basketball coach in the Great Plains Athletic Conference that competes at the NAIA collegiate level. McKeithen previously worked for the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Early Life
Ian McKeithen grew up in San Diego, California with his two brothers and one sister. He went to high school at Orange Glen High School where he played basketball and graduated in 2000. After graduating high school, he went to Imperial Valley College to continue his basketball career at the junior college level. He then attended Dakota State University where he played shooting guard for the Trojans, who were an NAIA division basketball team. McKeithen finished his college playing career having scored just over 1000 points.

Coaching Career
Ian McKeithen's coaching career started out right after he finished playing collegiate basketball. He started out as a graduate assistant at Augustana University, a NCAA Division II school in South Dakota. He also earned his masters while there. After two years as a GA, he became a basketball operations intern for the Minnesota Timberwolves from 2007-2008. He then became the assistant coach at his alma mater, Dakota State and an NAIA school in Iowa, Iowa Wesleyan College.

He got his first head coaching opportunity at Benedictine-Springfield in YEAR, where he started the program from scratch. During his tenure, he went 35-58, until the school closed. Once Benedictine closed, McKeithen became the assistant coach at Doane University under head coach Jim Weeks in YEAR. He served as the assistant for X years. He was named head coach in 2016. Since then, McKeithen is the only remaining African American head coach in the GPAC NAIA conference that Doane University plays in. He has a career record of 121-209 as a head coach.