Report: Ryan Schmidt to be named head coach of College Park Skyhawks

As the G League affiliate of the Atlanta Hawks, the College Park Skyhawks play a crucial role as the home to the developmental players that may one day contribute to the senior team. Steve Gansey, who led the Skyhawks as head coach for the past two seasons, has moved on, and in short order in his place will step a man with plenty of championship experience in various head coaching stops.

Ryan Schmidt will soon be named the new head coach of the Skyhawks, according to Brad Rowland of Locked on Hawks.

Schmidt’s latest G League experience was with Raptors 905, the G League affiliate of the Toronto Raptors, where he sat on the bench as an assistant coach from 2017-2021. Beginning in 2020, Schmidt also later overlapped as the head coach of the then Hamilton (now Brampton) Honey Badgers of the Canadian Elite Basketball League (CEBL) — the premier basketball league solely in Canada that operates during the NBA and G League offseason. In 2022, the third and last of Schmidt’s seasons there, the team won the CEBL Championship.

Last season, Schmidt headed overseas to coach the London Lions of the British Basketball League (BBL). The Lions racked up trophies in three major competitions in the 2022-23 schedule: the BBL Cup, the BBL Playoffs, and the BBL Championship — the latter for owning the best record in the regular season in domestic play.

Ryan Schmidt will officially take the reins at at later date as the Skyhawks begin to fill out their roster for the upcoming 2023-24 season.