Both basketball programs at Park Hill will be under new leadership next year. The girls program will be under the guidance of Xavielle Brown while Cooper Bayiha will lead the boys.
Brown replaces outgoing head coach Kennedi Erhard, who accumulated a record of 40-37 in the three seasons she led the girls program. The Trojans made it to the district semifinals last year with an 18-9 record.
The Fort Wayne, Indiana, native Brown most recently spent two years as head coach of the girls basketball program at North Kansas City and was named 2023-24 GKCSC Red Conference Coach of the Year.
Brown is also a Park University Hall of Honor member for his remarkable contributions as a student-athlete for the Pirates’ men’s basketball team. From 2013 to 2017, Brown scored more than 2,000 points and was a two-time AMC Player of the Year award winner and three-time NAIA All-American.
Xavielle Brown during his historic playing career at Park University.
Park Hill’s boys basketball program moves in a different direction for the first time in a decade following the departure of head coach Chad Jones. The Trojan alum will be replaced by a man new to Park Hill in Bayiha.
Bayiha most recently served as the head coach for Grandview’s boys basketball team last season and previously spent three years as an assistant coach at North Kansas City after a stint at William Chrisman.
A native of Douala, Cameroon, Bayiha graduated from high school in Connecticut before moving to the Kansas City area, where he began his collegiate basketball career at William Jewell College before finishing his final two years at Park University.