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Daniel Bradley hopes to bring a touch of Polk County’s basketball past to its present.

The former Wolverine player has been named Polk County’s interim boys basketball coach for the 2023-24 season. He will be helped by Wesley Jackson, with the two coaching both the junior varsity and varsity programs.

Bradley is a 2002 graduate of Polk County, where he played for legendary coach Derek Thomas. His son, Landen, graduated last year and also played in the Polk program.

“A couple of years ago, with Coach (DeShane) Briscoe moving into the athletic director’s role, I saw it would help out the program to have an extra coach, so I volunteered to help out,” Bradley said of his journey to his current position.

“I did some summer things, but that made it where I wasn’t able to help during the season because I was coaching a summer high school team. Now I can. I’m trying to get some of the Polk County culture back into it.”

Bradley steps into a program that finished 6-17 last season, including a 2-10 mark in Mountain Foothills 7 Conference play. He hopes a group of returnees and a focus on conditioning and tempo will help lead to improvement this season.

“Ideally, we’re going to be a hustle team because we don’t have size,” Bradley said. “Every other team is going to be in shape as well, so we’re trying to work, trying to get in shape for when the season starts.

“We want to be able to go hard for four quarters and we want to be able to press these teams to have an advantage. We have to be man-to-man all over the court and make them work everywhere and wear them out. Offensively, I don’t want us just standing around the 3-point line. We want to do a lot of motion and have some continuity stuff going on and moving all around.”

Practice will officially begin Monday for Polk teams, with the first game set for Nov. 17 at Avery.

“We want to be competitive,” Bradley said. “We are going to go out and work hard.”