Interview: Bonnabel boys basketball coach Micah Hagans understands the vast responsibilities of his position

It is home.

For Micah Hagans, Kenner is home but Bonnabel High School fits the description of home even more.

Hagans played four years under Glenn Dyer at Bonnabel and served as the top assistant to Dyer for 10 seasons before being named to the head coaching position after Dyer stepped down at the end of the 2019-2020 season to concentrate on being the schools’ athletic director.

Hagans played college basketball at Talladega College.

Dyer retired after 41 years with over 800 wins, 16 district championships and five appearances in the Final Four. Dyer also took the Bruins to state championship appearances in 2017 and this past season, when Bonnabel lost a 38-37 heartbreaker to Alexandria in the Class 5A state title game in Lake Charles before no fans on March 13.

Hagans is clearly prepared for the job.

He knows the school and program as well as anyone and deeply appreciates the opportunity and mentorship that Dyer provided for him.

Now, he takes over at a time where a sea change is taking place in our country as awareness, passion and understanding are taking place across racial, neighborhood and party lines.

Equality is the very basis of what the United States was founded on and there is finally a sincere effort to ensure that the future will look that way in America for everyone. Hagans spoke candidly on All Access on 106.1 FM NASH ICON Friday evening.

“The first thing we have to do, I feel like as a community and as a country as a whole is to identify exactly what’s going on,” Hagans said. “It’s unfortunate, but a lot of people, they don’t believe racism exists. We have to identify as a country that it is happening. Once we do that, we have to educate and people have to listen to what’s going on, listen to other people’s stories and figure out how we can effectively impact and make change.”

Hagans feels the status quo is simply not acceptable.

“We know we need change,” Hagans said. “We see a lot of NFL and NBA, a lot of people are speaking out realizing that the way things have been going in the past isn’t the way we should be going forward. In this country, in this time, you’re seeing a lot more people banding together to speak out against injustice, against police brutality and racism and that’s what we’re going to need, we’re going to need more people stepping up. We’re going to need more people listening and we’re going to need more mentors.”

While coaches, teachers and schools, at large, can make a difference, the beginning of proper morals and approaches to life and others must begin elsewhere.

“A lot of it starts at home,” Hagans said. “What we teach our kids at home, the way we should be teaching our families starts there because a lot of people have bad views on different races and that starts at home. We have to do a better job of training our youth, teaching our kids that love wins. Let’s make that the first priority and then we can go into the community and start making a change. I love what’s happening. It’s a good place but we also have a very long way to go.”

Racism was prevalent in Hagans’ past.

“It’s been huge in my life,” Hagans said. “I take you back to my freshman year of college. I was playing junior college basketball at Colby, Kansas at Colby Community College, a very small town in Kansas. I just remember that the basketball team, we were probably the only black kids on the campus and I remember coming home one day from practice and our doors were busted. We had water all over our lawn and we came outside and there’s cars chasing us down the street.

I’ll never forget this. We go to a well lit gas station and its about three cars, 15 African-American kids. We go inside and there’s a police officer inside and I told them, ‘hey, there’s guys trying to chase us off the road, yelling for us to go back home and we’re not wanted here.’ I’d never seen anything like that growing up in New Orleans where it’s real diverse. It’s not that bad out here. It really reminded me of an old movie.”

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a movie but the real thing.

“I was telling the cop what was going on,” Hagans said. “He looked at us and continued to drink his coffee. You could see a line of about 30 or 40 cars lined up outside with their lights off just waiting for us to leave so they could chase us again and the cop just looked, ignored us and didn’t say a word to us. That’s when I kind of knew we’re in a dangerous place. That was the first time I really experienced blatant racism. I know my mom, my family was really upset. They wanted me to come home. We kind of stuck it out.

Hagans and his teammates managed to escape the situation but the harrowing experience had a profound effect on the young student-athlete.

“When I experienced that, it really changed my view of everything and I knew I wanted to come home and make a change in my community and teach kids what’s important,” Hagans said. “That was the first time of many times that I experienced racism, discrimination, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.”

The experiences Hagans has gone through have taught him how to properly mentor young African-American men.

“It’s education,” Hagans said. “Talking to those guys daily. That’s the bigger part of basketball and coaching that people don’t understand. It’s not so much of the practices. It’s the 20 to 25 minutes before practice, just sitting down and talking and a lot of the time. If you are just talking about this week’s opponent, then you’re not really doing a good job of mentoring our kids. Those times I spend talking to those kids about what’s really important, what’s life like, how can you effectively make a change.”

Hagans addresses the elephant in the room, in those situations.

“Alright, you’re upset about what’s going on but are you really going to do anything about it?” Hagans said. “Let me show the right way to do something about it. I think that if coaches aren’t taking that time to help these kids, that’s wrong. These kids do a lot for us. They win a lot of games for us, a lot of people win state championships off of their kids.

“It can’t just be about what we are teaching them on the court. It has to be about letting me show you how to be a better person. Let me show you how to protest. Let me show you how to get your point across. Let me show you how to become better in your community so we have a better world.”

Hagans is reaching out to a former colleague to help prepare his players for tough situations they may encounter.

“Justin Brown, a college teammate of mine, is doing great work with Power Youth NOLA,” Hagans said. “That’s one of the first things I’m doing is bringing him in. His program basically talks to young men about how to handle themselves when they have interaction with police and he also has training with police about how to handle black kids in the community when you stop them. They have to know exactly what they can and what they can’t do, how to be smart and act accordingly.”

Utilizing patience and restraint is critical.

“I was always taught to get home at the end of the day,” Hagans said. “Whatever that takes, you can fight in court but you can’t fight if you can’t breathe. We’re teaching our guys this is how we’re going to do things going forward, this is how you’re going to handle yourself if you’re ever caught in this situation. Those talks are important. Those talks are the talks that are going to save their lives. Those are the talks they are going to remember 10 years down the line when they are talking to their kids.”

The job as a basketball coach pales in many ways to the bigger task at hand.

“We have to use our reach, we have to use our platform, we have to make sure we’re talking to these kids and we have to educate,” Hagans said.

With that approach, Hagans and Bonnabel appear to be well on the road to continuing the success experienced under Dyer, perhaps poised to take that final step to the top.