After making coaching stops at Lawrence High and Bishop Seabury Academy, Ted Juneau will head to his third high school in town.

Juneau was announced as Free State High’s girls basketball coach Wednesday night, replacing Bryan Duncan, who resigned in April after coaching the Firebirds for the last 14 seasons.

photo by: John Young

Seabury coach Ted Juneau looks for a call during Seabury's game against Veritas Friday evening at Corpus Christi Catholic Church in Lawrence.

“It all happened pretty quickly,” Juneau said. “They wanted to visit about that situation and the opening they had. It intrigued me. There are some opportunities to grow that program and continue to build on what coach Duncan has done. For me it was, maybe, one last challenge. I’m looking forward to that.”

During the past two summers, Juneau said he coached Free State senior-to-be Madison Piper, the school’s all-time leading scorer, in AAU basketball. He also coached Piper’s father, Chris, at LHS when he led the Lions to a state championship in 1983.

Juneau is expected to meet with Free State basketball players today.

“We need to make sure we have kids that want to make that commitment to be a part of a good, strong basketball team and understand that it’s just not one person,” Juneau said. “Knowing Madison, one thing I know is she wants what is best for the team and the team to be successful. I look forward to doing that with her and the rest of the girls.”

Juneau spent the last two years coaching girls basketball at Seabury, leading the Seahawks to a 9-28 record.

He told his former Seabury players Wednesday that he was leaving for Free State, calling it “probably the hardest thing I had to do.”

“I thought our kids did well there,” Juneau said of his time at Seabury. “They bought in to what we were trying to do. They played hard every night. I think we gave them a good experience there, and we look to do the same thing at Free State — to bring a culture of hard work and being competitive and being accountable for how well we do on the floor and off the floor.”

Before Juneau’s time coaching the LHS boys in the 1980’s, he was the girls basketball coach at Topeka High. Juneau has spent time as an administrator at Tulsa University when Danny Manning was the men’s basketball coach, and Juneau has coached men’s basketball at Haskell Indian Nations University.

“We certainly understand coach’s track record. His basketball experience and acumen speaks for itself,” Free State athletic director Mike Hill said. “The attractive thing with coach is the relationship he builds with kids. He was my history teacher 37 years ago, so I know first-hand how he operates with kids. I think our girls will be really happy to play for him.”

Juneau said he tries to implement the same philosophy with each team he coaches: pressure defense and a fast-break offense.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Juneau said. “Now we just have to get the infrastructure in for the summer. It’s getting kids involved, and we have summer league that starts next week.”