​Lyme-Old Lyme head coach Brady Sheffield during their game against Griswold in The Day Holiday Classic at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville Tuesday, December 23, 2025. (Jim Shannon/Hearst Connecticut Media)
The decision was this for Brady Sheffield: remain as Old Lyme’s boys basketball coach and continue building it into a small-school powerhouse or start the path to hopefully one day becoming a full-time college basketball head coach.Sheffield made the decision to choose the latter. Difficult not only because he was leaving where he once played, but also in the sense of the relationships he built and who was coming back for the Wildcats. Sheffield took a job as an assistant men’s basketball coach at Division III Mitchell College earlier this month.”It was definitely not an easy decision. “I was really excited with what we had coming back,” Sheffield said. “We had a great off-season to that point and they were playing well in the summer league.”Sheffield, 24, went 63-14 through three seasons, including the program’s first CIAC championship in 2024, winning Division V. Old Lyme was a Division V finalist again in 2025 and also won back-to-back Shoreline Conference championships the last two seasons. You would be hard-pressed to find someone who did a better job in that three-year span. Eddie Fiske, the two-time Shoreline Conference Player of the Year, transferred to The Frederick Gunn School. But a number of players are returning in the Wildcats’ bid for a third-straight league championship. Plus, Sheffield rests easy knowing who his replacement is.As first reported by the New London Day, Matt Watts-St. Germain is Sheffield’s replacement. Not only is he an alum like Sheffield, he also played for former longtime head coach Kirk Kaczor. He also had been coaching the Old Lyme Middle School team, which provided even more knowledge of the kids coming into the high school program.So with Watts-St. Germain on board, it’s a program that should continue to be a contender.”It’s a group of guys who work really hard,” Sheffield said about the players. “It’s also a dedicated coaching staff, so the foundation is there and it’s solid. The kids are in good hands.”Sheffield, an instructional assistant at Old Lyme Middle School, will be coaching under Todd Peretz at Mitchell, which plays in the Great Northeast Athletic Conference.Sign up for the Connecticut Briefing from CT Insider. Get the biggest headlines of the day from our network of journalists around the state.This article originally published at CIAC championship boys basketball coach Brady Sheffield takes next step to college-level program.