Larry McKenzie is a Hall of Fame coach – again
By David Pierini staff reporter
You can congratulate North High basketball coach Larry McKenzie on being inducted into the Hall of Fame and he’s likely to first respond with a question.
Which one?
Already a member of the Minnesota Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame, McKenzie learned on Oct. 4 he was named to the Minnesota State High School League Hall of Fame Class for 2022. News of the honor came the same week he was preparing a trip back to his alma mater, University of Wisconsin-River Falls, to be honored as a new inductee into the schools athletics Hall of Fame.
McKenzie led Patrick Henry High School to four-straight state titles between 2003 and 2006. Then returned to the Northside to coach a struggling Polars program to back-to-back titles in 2016 and 2017.
North High boys basketball coach Larry McKenzie (right) will be inducted into the Minnesota State High School League Hall of Fame. Photo by David Pierini
He has coached a team to the state tournament 11 times in 23 years, but the stat line he proudest of is this – 100 percent of the kids he has coached went to a two or four year college, 33 percent now have college degrees.
McKenzie said he feels honored and that the news came as a complete shock. It’s likely only he was surprised.
“If we’re known by our ‘fruit,’ then Coach McKenzie’s fruit is high standards and high outcomes – in the classroom and on the basketball court,” said North Principal Mauri Friestleben. “His legacy is his players, his legacy is one of success – again, in the classroom or workplace and the basketball court. I am proud to do this work alongside him.”
McKenzie left Patrick Henry to take the head coaching job at the Academy of Holy Angels in Richfield. After five seasons, McKenzie felt the pull back to North Minneapolis and his old job at Patrick Henry was open.
He applied, he interviewed – and he didn’t get it. Rival North also was in search of a new coach and McKenzie found his way home.
The Polars had just eight wins over the past two seasons when he took over the team for the 2013-14 season. Odell Wilson was an eight-grader and player on McKenzie’s first team at North and remembers some of the best players searching for a strong high school program of which to be a part.
“We had guys looking at Hopkins and DeLaSalle, but as soon as they heard Coach McKenzie was coming to North, they knew his history and reputation and said, ‘Why would we play for somebody else,’” said Wilson, now in his sophomore season at Missouri Southern State University. “Right away, we’d huddle up after a practice or before a game, and he would ask, ‘Are we the best team in the state?’ He got us into the right mindset.”
Two years later in 2016, during Wilson’s sophomore year, North finished as the best team for its first of two-straight titles.
The record speaks for itself, but offers only a partial picture of what McKenzie has meant for his players. To make sure his players consider a college education, McKenzie has been known to drive them to college visits. He makes sure his players are getting enough to eat. There also have been a few players from troubled homes and McKenzie and his family welcomed them into their home for a safe place to stay.
Awards and Hall of Fame invitations have streamed in. He was the first African- American coach to be selected to the state’s Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame in 2014, was named a Bush Fellow in 2018 and was given the NCAA’s Living Legend Award in 2019.
And if these honors are a surprise to anyone, it’s McKenzie himself. He grew up in a basketball family but wanted nothing to do with coaching or working with young people.
“If 40 years ago, you told me I’d be working with kids, we would have a big fight,” McKenzie said. “I was selfish and wanted to make money.”
Having forgotten such a declaration, McKenzie found himself in the Big Brothers program. His Little was in middle school and when he overheard the principal say they didn’t have a basketball coach, the boy volunteered his Big Brother.
“After some choice words, he won the argument and I coached his middle school team,” McKenzie recalled. “We won the championship. That was the beginning and my life changed forever.”