Wednesday, November 12, 2014

A basketball bloke

How does anyone born and bred in football-centric (what's called soccer over here) England develop an unbreakable bond with basketball?

Richard Midgley is qualified to answer such a question as his connection to hoops is one nothing and no one can cleave asunder. It's the sports path he chose and now his life's work.

That direction began at age seven.

"I went to a local pro basketball game," Midgley explained. Soon after, "my Dad, who was a soccer player, bought me a basketball."

The die was cast.

Soon he was repping the local Haywards Heath Eagles and then the London Towers organization as well as captaining the England Youth National squad.

So when did he initially realize a college scholarship in the United States was a possibility?

"Around the age of 13 -- I knew I wanted to come to the US for high school and college like a few of the older players on the London Towers that I looked up to."

"There's a lot of talent in England and the challenge is to continue develop the top players after the age of 15 and 16, Midgley said." It's a matter of being ready for college basketball. He offered Luke Nelson at UC Irvine and Kingsley Okoroh at California as present examples with Nelson being a 6-foot-3 sophomore guard poised to enjoy a breakout season while Okoroh is a 7-foot-1 freshman.

Midgley crossed the pond when he was 15.

He recalled, "I was injured and sat a lot of my sophomore year. Chuck Hayes was our best player and Brad Watkins, who went on to play at Stanislaus State, was also on the team."

But as a junior, Midgley and Modesto Christian reached the Division One state finals.

The 6-foot-3 guard committed early to Ben Braun and California. It was a matter of the Bears or Stanford "I wanted to stay in Northern California and Chris Hernandez had just committed to Stanford and it looked like there would be more minutes for me at Cal."

So Berkeley it was.

On the court, Midgley earned a spot on the Pac-10 All-Freshman squad. He got his team to round two of the NCAA tournament that season after nailing a trey with less than four seconds left in overtime to turn back North Carolina State.

It was 12.9 points per contest as a junior and an 8.6 average his final year, one in which he was injured off-and-on.

He majored in social welfare but openly offered, "I was a 100% committed to basketball. Since I was 12, I was going to be a pro."

Midgley did turn professional with Spanish LEB1 Tenerife but returned to the U.S. to in order to rehab his body. After a couple of stints of playing in England, it was back to America, Modesto in particular.

His departure was due to "I had been playing injured for four years and my body was all banged up," Midgley explained.

At a Modesto Christian open gym, he ran into Gabe Vincent and Mason Washington, who were in the 8th grade at the time, and began doing skill work with them. Training became Midgley's passion and that led to becoming a teacher at Modesto Christian as well as the co-coach of the varsity alongside venerable Gary Porter.

While the lure of college coaching remains, Midgley is direct and specific: "I love what I do now. High school is fun and I could not be happier at Modesto Christian and the kids I get to work with. We have committed players that work hard year-round."

As for the 2014-15 season, he offered, "We should be pretty good with Anthony Townes, Jeff Wu and Christian Ellis, all college level type guys. We have a good group of role players and some younger kids with potential."

Football's loss was basketball's gain. Ours too.

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