Glen Lake’s Bradford Family Grows Together Through Basketball

Bradford is a household name at Maple City Glen Lake, especially when it comes to basketball.

Jason has been the girls’ head coach for the past 15 years, coaching daughters Grace and Maddie to the collegiate level.

Grace has just wrapped her freshman year at Lake Superior State University and was named GLAIC Freshman of the Year. Younger sister, Maddie, will join her there next season. But Maddie just walked away from the Glen Lake program with a title of her own under her father’s guidance, state champion.

“It’s a lot. It’s a lot to take in and like I said we were blessed,” Jason said.

The Bradford girls weren’t the only ones learning during their time at Glen Lake, Jason had some things to learn, too.

“The biggest thing, you know, I’m probably the hardest son, my two daughters going through the program, you know, high expectations, but, you know, they, they look up to me as a coach and push them hard and they respond and you know, the biggest thing is always been respectful and working hard. So that work ethic goes a long way,” Jason said.

The work ethic Jason has instilled in his girls is clearly working, and not just in his daughters, but the rest of girls he coaches.

On Glen Lake’s road to the state title, they found themselves down a few times, but never out.

“Even the one former coach Don Miller said, I think you could probably sell your halftime speech, not your opening speech, but your halftime speech, and make some money off it,” Jason laughed. “But you know, I did get on them a little bit. But I said it’s not ending here.”

But in daughterly fashion, his game winning speeches aren’t Maddie’s favorite thing she’s heard him say in the huddle.

“He says ‘Geez-O-Pete!’ a lot. Just lightens the mood,” Maddie laughed.

But Jason has left her with good advice.

“Have confidence and look to shoot whenever you have the chance,” she said.

LSSU fans certainly have a fun pairing to look forward to watching on the court next season with the Bradford girls.

“Looking back at when they played together last year, they had a connection where they knew where each other were on the floor. So it’ll be interesting to see if that carries over to college level, you know, the outlets and the passes. Maddie, she’s really good at catching the ball high and they have to guard her and she’s good at dumping the ball back on the backside. So, you know, Grace knows when to cut, it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out and how they work together and the college level,” their coach and dad said.

Maddie plans on studying education while playing at LSSU.