7/21/23 – Brooke Atkinson Named Assistant Women’s Basketball Coach at Cal Poly

Original article (Cal Poly Women’s Basketball Adds Brooke Atkinson to Coaching Staff) on California Polytechnic State University’s athletic website gopoly.com.

Cal Poly women’s basketball head coach Shanele Stires has added a new face to her coaching staff as Brooke Atkinson, most recently a coach at University of Wyoming, has been named as an assistant coach.

In her one season at Wyoming in 2022-23, Atkinson helped the Cowgirls to 23 wins, a second-place finish in the Mountain West, and an appearance in the Women’s NIT and Mountain West Tournament championship game.

Atkinson came to Wyoming after spending the previous five seasons as the head coach at New Mexico State. While with the Aggies, Atkinson won 75 games and was the 2017-18 WAC Coach of the Year after she led NMSU to its fourth consecutive WAC regular season title. In 2018-19, the Aggies won their fifth-straight regular season championships and the WAC Tournament title, earning a trip to the NCAA Tournament.

At New Mexico State, Atkinson helped guide seven student-athletes to All-WAC honors. Also under Atkinson, Brooke Salas was a two-time WAC Player of the Year (2017-18 and 2018-19) while also being named the league’s Defensive Player of the Year in 2018-19.

“I am very excited to be joining the Cal Poly family,” Atkinson said. “I am an admirer of Coach Stires and what she is building here and I can’t wait to be part of it and help in that process to win Big West Championships.”

Atkinson joined New Mexico State after spending three seasons as an assistant at Colorado State. In her three seasons at CSU, the Rams won three-straight Mountain West championships, including making an NCAA appearance in 2015-16. Prior to joining the Rams, Atkinson spent 2011-14 at South Dakota. In all three of those seasons, South Dakota received postseason berths, including the Coyotes’ first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance in 2014.

Prior to arriving in South Dakota, Atkinson spent eight seasons (2003-11) as an assistant coach at New Mexico State. While in Las Cruces, she helped lead the 2009-10 Aggies to their first postseason appearance in 16 seasons.

As a player, Atkinson played at Western Nebraska CC (1998-00) before closing with her final two seasons at Wichita State (2000-02). Atkinson graduated from Wichita State in 2003 with a degree in Elementary Education and earned her master’s degree in Educational Curriculum from NMSU in 2008.