Coach’s goal to produce better players, people
Ready athletes through the years have been typecast as small but scrappy, befitting their blue-collar West Side upbringing.
“We always play with a chip on our shoulder,” Silver Knights 5-foot-10 senior point guard Brady Thomas said. “Some of it comes from us being the smallest school in the Central Catholic League. We have the attitude that some teams look down on us, and we’re determined to prove to them how tough we are.”
In building the program “the Ready way,” fourthyear coach Dan DeCrane has consciously fed off the players’ hard-nosed work ethic to develop not only their abilities, but confidence and team chemistry as well.
“I’m a firm believer that I want our guys learning lessons all the time, so we put in a few things to help the kids maximize their potential as young men and players,” said DeCrane, who formerly served as an assistant at Akron Hoban, Lakewood St. Edward, Akron East and Hartley.
“Once a week during the preseason and the season itself, we have squire sessions, something we call Knight in Training, in which we go to a lot of retreats and camps and work on mental preparation, positive psychology, leadership and service reflection. It’s an ongoing process designed to help them grow as people and build consistency in their lives.
“From May to October, twice a week, we hold oneand-half-hour competitive toughness sessions at an outdoor facility owned by one of our parents. We do speed and agility drills, endurance competitions, ladderclimbing events, jumping on boxes, elevated sit-ups, leg lifts and other calisthenics and cross-fit concepts designed to develop their core strength. We hope this will give us an edge during games when we’re trying to play hard-nosed defense and grind down opponents physically.”
Thomas said both sets of drills have benefited the team enormously.
“The team bonding has helped more than anything,” he said. “We’re definitely a team in the truest sense. We feel like the foundation has been set to take the program big places.”
Senior guard Jordan Gantz loves the energy that DeCrane has bought to the program.
“From day one, he brought an everyday, every-littlething attitude that I’ve never had from another coach,” he said. “He’s brought us so much closer, and he teaches us more than just the game of basketball. The bar has really been raised.”
Forced to rebuild after Don Worstell guided the 2014 team to the state semifinals, DeCrane has improved Ready from 4-19 to 6-16 to 14-10 last season. Although Hartley is considered the CCL favorite by most, Ready hopes to make a run at its first conference title since 2002.
Thomas, who averaged 12.6 points and 4.3 assists, and versatile 6-4 senior forward Chanc Dawson (11 points, 5.0 rebounds, 2.6 assists) lead the charge for Ready. Thomas is a fourthyear starter approaching 1,000 career points.
“We feel that if we can compete in the CCL, we can compete with anybody, and history has proven that in the tournament,” DeCrane said. “We’ve talked about the legacy these guys want to leave. It’s pretty clear they’re determined to make noise for the CCL title and try to win the district. That last goal won’t be easy because Division III is loaded this year, but our guys will give it their best shot.”