NEXT DUCHARME UP
Reid Ducharme can be the latest family member to play high-level college basketball. He could do so with sister Caroline at Uconn
Todd and Chrissy Ducharme had done this before.
They’ve toured facilities, heard the pitches and listened to coaches deliver their spiel about why their high schooler should choose their program. With two children playing Division I college basketball and a third just beginning the recruiting process, not much can catch the Ducharmes off guard at this point.
But a June day in Gampel Pavilion, sitting across from Uconn men’s basketball coach Dan Hurley, feelings of surrealism overtook the couple from Milton, Massachusetts.
On one side of the parents was their son, Reid, a junior at Brewster Academy who has quickly
become one of New England’s premier boys basketball recruits in the class of 2023. On their other side was Caroline, a freshman on the Huskies’ women’s basketball team and Reid’s older sister.
She met her family in Hurley’s office following one of her first practices for Geno Auriemma. Caroline was still wearing her Uconn jersey.
“My wife and I looked at each other like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ ” Todd Ducharme said.
Reid, a 6-foot-6 guard and fourstar recruit who played his freshman and sophomore seasons at Nobles and Greenough School in Masachusetts, left Storrs that day with a scholarship offer from Hurley. He’s also been offered by Syracuse, Stanford, Iowa, Providence, Brown, Harvard and others.
Impressive, yet nothing new to the Ducharmes.
“It’s not like a normal family, which is amazing,” Reid Ducharme said.
Caroline was regarded as one of the nation’s top girls basketball recruits in the Class of 2021, ranked fifth overall by ESPN. Older sister, Ashley, is a senior at Brown and started 21 games as a sophomore in 2019-20.
Todd played football and ran track at Williams College, a Division III institution in northwestern Massachusetts. Chrissy scored over 1,000 points for the Ephs’ women’s basketball team.
Reid, the youngest of the bunch, looks to be the next Ducharme to play college sports. He could even do so with Caroline in Storrs.
“Not everybody gets a sister who is as accomplished as my sister,” Reid Ducharme said. “To be around her [during the recruiting process], she’ll be like, ‘Oh, no, they’re just saying that.’ She’s really helped me along the way just to be like, ‘This is what I look for, this is what I wanted.’ ”
Said Caroline: “That’d be great if we could play together, but I want him to make his own decision.”
There’s the famous Reggie and Cheryl Miller story, in which a high-school age Reggie boasted to his family about scoring 39 points in a game. His older sister Cheryl, a three-time Naismith Player of the Year at USC, had just scored 105, though.
Todd said that while the three Ducharme kids are all quite competitive, they haven’t experienced that situation yet.
“They’ve all had their moments, coming home [and saying], ‘Oh, I had 41 today. Oh, I had 25 in the third quarter,’ ” Ducharme said. “I don’t know if I could pick out that kind of story; that story is famous. Maybe in college they’ll have one of those.”
How about a one-on-one 3-point contest between Caroline and Reid?
“I don’t know, Caroline is frickin’ good,” Todd said with a laugh. “She can shoot it ... That would be interesting because his shot has gotten a lot better. He is really streaky, and if he gets it going, he’s tough.
“But I think, [if you] put the two in the gym, it will be a battle. Because they are both incredibly competitive.”
There’s added value in having older siblings who have reached the heights Caroline and Ashley have. As Reid put it, the family knows what excellence looks like.
They know what hard work looks like. They know how to discern between a flashy highlight play and strong fundamentals.
In the Ducharme household, standards are high.
“Every day it’s like, what are we doing to get better?” Reid said. “I watch film with my sisters. We do everything together.
“It’s just awesome to go off one another like, ‘What the hell was that? What are you doing?’ My family is not going to be saying, ‘Oh, you did such a good job Reid,’ when I didn’t because they know I can do better.”
Added Todd: “Everybody likes to sit on the sideline and video [Reid’s] dunks. Yeah, he can do that. But guess what? If he’s going to play high major basketball, that’s not what his skill set is going to be.
“Everyone can do that now. ... That’s great that you can do that, but that’s kind of the price of admission. Let’s work on the fundamentals: You played great defense today, you had multiple effort plays.”
Reid, of course, is more than just the younger brother of two Division I players. He’s a burgeoning star in his own right, one who his club basketball coach, Leo Papile of Boston Area Basketball Club, said is positioning himself to excel at a high level for the next decade.
“He’s got the prototype, big guard body,” Papile said, singling out Reid’s shooting touch and defensive abilities. “His physicality,
and the ability to play through contact. He has the right dimensions . ... He’s the prototype, big-time big guard, and he’s trying to do all the skill sets that correlate with that.”
Ducharme will play his final two seasons of high school basketball at the prestigious Brewster Academy in N.H., alongside fellow Uconn target Taylor Bowen, a five-star wing in the Class of 2023.
By the time he will choose a college, Ducharme will likely have a cornucopia of high-level opportunities. Papile, who founded BABC in 1977 and has coached the likes of Patrick Ewing and Dana Barros, said Ducharme stands out — not because he has broken the basketball mold, but because he’s a traditionalist. For that reason, Uconn could be a fit.
“Danny [Hurley] holds you accountable,” Papile said. “Reid chose to play [at BABC] where it’s very similar ... I think Reid is preparing himself for being a contributor at high-level basketball over the next decade or so.”
Todd, of course, will support whatever decision Reid makes, but a weekend doubleheader in Storrs, with Reid on one end and Caroline on the other, is hard to ignore.
“You can’t help but think [that] in the back of your mind,” Todd said. “An hour-and-a-half away, it would be a lot easier than a flight.”