LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — The chair doesn’t look like much. Just another folding model on the Bellarmine bench, the kind you stack in the offseason and forget by Derby.
But for Doug Davenport, it might as well be the Iron Throne.
Because this wasn’t just a promotion. It was a coronation. The new head coach at Bellarmine didn’t just inherit a team. He inherited a legacy, a family business, and a sideline spot he’s been mentally occupying since he was the size of a Gatorade cup.
“Coaching was all I ever wanted to do.” he said, like a kid who never had a Plan B. Not doctor. Not astronaut. Not fireman. Just coach.
Doug Davenport grew up in a gym. Some kids grow up in the suburbs. Some grow up on farms. He grew up on baseline out-of-bounds plays. His first coloring book was a playbook. His first babysitter was a shootaround.
His dad, Scott Davenport, built a championship program at Ballard High School, then worked for both Denny Crum and Rick Pitino at Louisville before building Bellarmine first into a Division II champion then into a Division I conference champion.
It was was his own slice of Naismith heaven — part discipline, part diplomacy, and a whole lot of ball movement.
Now Doug has the whistle. And the keys.
He didn’t just wake up one day and find himself in this position, though. He worked for Chris Mack at Xavier. Worked for Pitino at Louisville. Worked for his dad for eight years.
He said his plans for moving into a head coaching job “have been going on since I was, literally, 23 years old.”
He not only drew from the head coaches he worked for, but assistants he worked with, like Travis Steele, now the head coach at Miami of Ohio, Mick Cronin (UCLA) and Kevin Willard (Villanova).
“The first thing I learned from all those guys is that I’m not those guys,” he said.
Along the way, he studied. Apprenticed. Served time. Got what he calls his basketball Ph.D. under Pitino.
“When I was leaving Louisville I met with Coach P in his office,” Davenport said. “He said, ‘Remember, take everything that you learned here, things that we do well, and remember there are some things we don't do well. But your only path forward is to be yourself.’”
Davenport is comfortable playing that role. But he knows the traditional Bellarmine model may need an upgrade. The game has changed so rapidly.
“My dad did such a phenomenal job making it what it is,” he said. “It wasn’t all the way broken. But we knew it needed a tune up.”
He doesn’t want to lose the values his father instilled, but he’s hoping to adapt those for the modern landscape.
“We probably weren’t built for scrambling and throwing a roster together every nine months,” he says.
Bellarmine is still more about building commitment, and less about speed dating. But he also gets that the latter may be necessary from time to time.
First-year Bellarmine coach Doug Davenport with his team before a team photo at the program's media day in Knights' Hall on Oct. 23, 2o25.
He’s simplifying. Clarifying. Coaching. It’s what he’s built to do. The standards stay the same.
What matters now? Defense.
One of four signs in the locker room reads, “We own the ball and we own the box.”
Not the Pyramid of Success, but pretty foundational to the team’s success. One after another, players talked about its importance on Wednesday.
“It’s actually going to define our season,” Davenport said.
Fans should recognize the offense. Bellarmine basketball is Bellarmine basketball. It’s why a guy like Brian Waddell left Purdue, the No. 1-ranked program in the nation, to play here. That, and playing time.
But Davenport hopes the defense, over time, becomes more efficient, and effective.
“It'll look very familiar as far as the pace and the ball movement, hopefully,” he said.
He has some scorers. Jack Karasinski returns. Kenyon Goodin can score from the point guard spot. Waddell, Tyler Doyle in back in a starting role.
“I don’t lose any sleep at night worrying about whether we can score,” he said. “I do lose sleep worrying about whether we can stop the other guys from scoring.”
It’s all part of life in his new chair. There are more demands. He may have underestimated just how many demands outside of actually coaching that his father handled in the job. He’s finding out now.
In today’s college basketball, every roster can seem like a jigsaw puzzle missing two corner pieces. At Bellarmine, in the land of NIL and revenue sharing, how do you thrive?
He opens his head coaching career with games at Georgia and Kansas State. Welcome to the new chair. It’s not always comfortable. But Doug Davenport has spent a lifetime getting ready.
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