Shortly before the holidays arrived, Russell and the Longhorns took to Phil Russell Basketball Court at Ogden High for a 57-36 road triumph, led by senior Jaxon Slaugh’s 24 points and a second-half performance that sealed the program’s fifth-ever victory.

A win should always feel good. But taking the floor named after Ogden’s all-time winningest coach in Phil Russell — he who led the Tigers’ girls basketball program to five state titles and more than 500 wins until his retirement in 2013 — is a behemoth for an otherwise ordinary weeknight ballgame.

Mike Russell, his team and his family shared, as he describes, a “full-circle” moment after the game, capturing photos with the Phil Russell memorial display at the center entrance of the gymnasium. Phil died suddenly in November 2021 due to complications with COVID-19.

“I coached a game on the court that dawns my late father’s name,” Russell said in an X post. “So grateful for his life and legacy. He lives on through the countless lives he touched.”

Photo supplied, Mike Russell

It’s likely not a moment Russell could’ve imagined as a player at Ogden at the turn of the century, but one the West Field athletic director and head boys basketball coach can certainly appreciate as his coaching career opens a new chapter in familiar territory.

Russell graduated from Ogden in 2000, embarked on a two-year mission in California for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and returned home to assist Ogden boys basketball from 2004 to 2007. At his father’s encouragement, Russell applied for the Bonneville girls basketball job in 2007.

Still an enrolled college student, Russell said his first season coaching girls tested everything he knew about himself and his capacity as an instructor. Russell later became Bonneville’s athletic director before departing to be head coach for Snow College girls basketball in 2015.

Russell led the Badgers to a SWAC championship in 2019, the program’s first conference title in 18 seasons; The NJCAA named Russell the Region 18 Coach of the Year the same year. Snow made three Region 18 championship appearances during Russell’s tenure.

“I’m still pretty close with some of the girls that I coached on that team,” Russell said. “I really wasn’t that much older than them so when you look back it’s like, wow. … It’s funny to talk to them because I think it tried my patience a little bit early.”

Photo supplied, Mike Russell

He continued:

“People ask me all the time, ‘How do you stay so calm,'” Russell said. “I don’t get really excited, I’m not super animated and that has a lot to do with just coaching women. I just try to always have composure and I don’t really yell at my players. It’s helped me a lot.”

Following his father’s death, Russell returned to the area in 2021 to become Syracuse’s head boys basketball coach for two seasons. In 2023, Russell accepted his current role as West Field’s athletic director with an avenue to become the head boys basketball coach.

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By the early 1970s, Ogden felt the impact of Title IX and looked to Phil Russell — who’d already spent a couple years coaching anything assigned to him — as the school’s first-ever girls basketball head coach beginning with the 1973 season.

As previously reported by the Deseret News, Russell had never coached girls before and set out to educate himself on the game. While a student at Weber State, Russell played baseball and football for the Wildcats.

Anne Handy Jones, one of Russell’s earliest success stories, graduated from Ogden in 1981 and played college ball at the University of Utah and professionally in Europe. Later, Jones coached as an assistant at Weber State and as head coach at Viewmont and Davis.

Recalling her time at Ogden, Jones felt Russell surpassed his duty to secure everything from quality uniforms to adequate gym time for those early girls hoops teams. The first state tournaments weren’t held until 1976.

“I never felt like we had less than the boys,” Jones said. “He was a real pioneer in that. … He made every kid that played for him feel important.”

While coaching prep ball, Jones served on the Utah Girls Basketball Association board and often called upon Russell to speak at numerous events. Jones credits Russell’s example with inspiring her path into coaching.

“When you get into coaching, you just want to give back to those players what a coach did for you,” Jones said.

“What Phil Russell did for me, I wanted to give back to those players that I coached and for sure he was an inspiration and a model and someone that the entire state looked up to because he won, but also did it right.”

The pair’s friendship blossomed further when Russell’s son, Mike, was tabbed as Bonneville’s girls coach in 2007. All three — Phil Russell, Mike Russell and Anne Handy Jones — crossed paths as head girls basketball coaches during the late 2000s and mid-2010s.

“(Mike) has a lot of his dad in him,” Jones said. “He’s learned and been raised by two really great parents that know how you treat people is as important as what you’re coaching on the floor. … What you’re teaching is life lessons and I think Mike is a lot like his dad in that respect having watched Mike grow as a coach.”

When Mike Russell departed Bonneville for Snow in 2015, the young coach recognized the impact it had on his parents, Phil and Carolyn, moving two hours south to Ephraim and moving his wife, Melise, and their children.

Still, the Russells maintained their relationship over basketball.

“They came to a lot of games,” Mike Russell said. “It was never said to me that they were disappointed we were moving because I know the answer to that, I’m positive they were. But they never let me feel that, they never made me feel like I was in the wrong for going to take this job or disappointing them. … The communication was always there.”

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Moving to Utah from Idaho in the late 1980s, Jim Price coached football at Ogden from 1989 to 1997. Price befriended Russell on the gridiron; the pair each filled out their resumes with any sport the school let them instruct, including baseball (Price) and volleyball (Russell).

Price said he was always astounded by just how much time Russell lent to the school.

“(Phil) put in a lot of time there,” Price said. “People thought he lived there because he was there weekends and was one of the first ones there and the last one to leave. … If you’ve talked to anybody at Ogden High, they know Phil Russell.”

Russell spent so much time within school walls, they became a regular meet-up spot for his sons on the weekend.

“I grew up in the gym just going to his games,” Russell said. “This is back when coaches did everything. … I started playing basketball in third or fourth grade and (Phil) coached our teams. That was my childhood, just growing up in Ogden High and going down to the gym on Sundays.”

Over 30-plus years of coaching and teaching, Price and Russell developed a strong bond from fishing to surveying the best lunch in town.

A golf game in the fall of 2020 was placed on hold when Phil Russell phoned Price to let him know they would have to reschedule because “that dang COVID” had Russell tied up in the hospital.

Phil Russell and his eldest son, Matt, had tested positive for COVID-19 in September; the father later returned to the hospital after experiencing breathing complications for multiple weeks.

One week after that phone call, Phil Russell was placed on a ventilator and removed from contact with family or visitors.

Ogden renamed its basketball court after Phil Russell in 2021 and introduced special uniforms displaying his name that same year. Special uniforms are worn by the Tigers girls basketball team annually for the Phil Russell Memorial Basketball Game played each season.

Price summed his memory of Russell briefly:

“If you knew Phil, he was your friend,” Price said.

Connect with prep sports reporter Conner Becker via email at cbecker@standard.net and X @ctbecker.