“Fuel for the fire”
By channeling his emotion, Colbey Ross exits with championship résumé
At the end of his storied high school career, Colbey Ross’ basketball résumé is stuffed with highlights. A 2017 Class 5A state championship. Two Gatorade state player of the year nods. A Division I scholarship to Pepperdine. And now, this season, The Denver Post’s Mr. Colorado Basketball award.
Yet through the accumulation of all the individual accolades — and for the senior guard’s decisive role in Eaglecrest’s team success over the past several seasons, a time span in which the Raptors went to three consecutive Final Fours and consecutive championship games — there always seemed to be critics knocking Ross for his heart-on-the-sleeve style of play.
Too emotional. Too many histrionics. An abrasive leadership style.
Those echoes of judgment bounced around the Twittersphere and reared themselves at practice through most of his high school career, as a talented and fiercely competitive player was growing to understand that learning how to lose is not the same thing as being OK with losing.
“Every single day in practice for four years, if I called a foul, Colbey had something to say about it,” said Eaglecrest coach John Olander, who retired after the Raptors’ 53-47 championship game victory over George Washington this month. “And if something didn’t go right, Colbey had something to say. I literally kicked him out of practice two or three times a season because he couldn’t handle if his team lost. It was somebody else’s fault. It was never his fault.”
As Ross came into his own as the face of the Eaglecrest basketball program, he heard those criticisms loud and clear. And when the pressure intensified this year — when the Raptors opened the season as the preseason No. 1 and presumptive title favorite — the senior captain began to mature.
“My sophomore and junior year it was a struggle for me, because I remember I’d always go home from practice as mad as can be,” Ross said. “But this year, I was able to take the team to another level because I challenged myself to keep that emotion inside me — to put it out on the court and make it fuel for the fire.”
Throughout his final prep season, Ross delivered in the biggest moments.
He had a number of game-winning shots as the Raptors captured the Centennial League crown. Then, in the postseason, clutch baskets in the fourth quarter and overtime in a dramatic Final Four victory over Rock Canyon were topped by his gamehigh 15 points in the championship game.
“He’s grown up so much,” Olander said. “This year, there were none of those episodes in practice, and I think he really let his teammates get close to him, and that helped us in the tough moments in the tournament. They knew he trusted them completely.”
Part of the 6-foot, 170-pound playmaker’s maturation came when he realized he didn’t have to play in the shadow of his older brother Elijah, who won a state title with Eaglecrest in 2013 and went on to play college basketball at UCCS.
“One of the things Colbey had to overcome over the last few years is that he was always kind of in the shadows of Elijah, who had always taken a leadership role even at home,” said Colbey’s mother, Mary Ross. “So Colbey never had to step up, and he was always just following in his footsteps. When he left, Colbey took the reins and he saw that same increased responsibility on the court too.”
As he heads to Malibu, Calif., this summer to enroll and begin his collegiate career at Pepperdine, Ross will look back at pride with what he accomplished as one of Eaglecrest’s all-time best players.
“It was a relief to win the title, not even going to lie, and also a little sad,” Ross said. “There was a lot of pressure this year — not saying I’m scared of pressure, because my team and I were made for that — but it was a relief in the sense that we were ranked No. 1 all season, and we saved our best for the end.”