Pride is something that you build.
Sometimes, it just so happens that it can be done in a physical manner.
That’s why Monroe City’s new head boys’ basketball coach Brad Dempsey is making a new locker room for his team. Right now, it’s at its foundation — just some cinder blocks on the floor, holding down a rug in a basement that is known to flood from time to time. But Dempsey envisions a room filled with hard-wood lockers, complete with slots for his players to put their nameplates.
“It’s something that they can be proud of,” Dempsey said. “That’s important to me, coming from a pride stance. Everything that I do to build pride in this program, people are just jumping all over it and they are excited.”
That is just one of the ways that this former Palmyra assistant head coach plans to bring the pride back to the Panthers.
After last season’s 6-19 record, the Panthers have plenty of work ahead of them. Monroe City finished its Clarence Cannon Conference schedule with a 1-6 record, averaging just under 35 points per game and suffering its biggest loss of the season after a 97-49 defeat at the hands of the South Shelby Cardinals.
It is for reasons like those that Dempsey said he has spent much of his time breaking bad habits his players have developed. While he said that he has no disrespect for the way former Monroe City boys’ head basketball coach Rick Baker did things, Dempsey has a completely different idea of what is going to work for the team.
“It’s being aggressive versus being passive,” Dempsey said. “They played a 1-3-1 zone for years. With that type of defense, you are sitting in passing lanes and trying to confuse the defense. This is high school basketball. You are not going to run against teams that have more than two or three good ball-handlers. ... We want to pressure the defense.”
“What do we have to lose?” Dempsey said. “We won six games last year. Nobody thinks we are going to be very good. It means nothing to me. Nobody respects Monroe City basketball, so it’s the best situation. We’ll be the underdog all year. Even when we win games, we’ll be the underdog because everybody will say how beatable we are.”
Some of that teaching will be easier with some of the players. Dempsey has spent the off-season getting familiar Monroe City names like Joe Chin and C.J. Hayden to come out for their first year of high school basketball, adding some serious size the Panther roster.
Dempsey said that it is that size, coupled with a hard-nosed attitude, which will win his team basketball games.
“We will be one of the bigger teams [in the area] for the first time in a long time,” Dempsey said. “Fundamentally, we are behind everybody and we will be all year. But, that gives me the opportunity to play a style that adapts to our athleticism, not our fundamentals. When you watch Monroe City play, you aren’t going to walk into the gym and say ‘That’s a great fundamental basketball team.’ They are going to walk into the gym and say ‘That’s a hard-working, get-after-it basketball team. It’s never going to be pretty and I don’t expect that.”
Not all of his squad is made up of newcomers. Dempsey will get the advantage of a multitude of returning members from last season, after graduating just three seniors at the end of last year. Included in that group of returning members, which Dempsey said he sees as real cores of this year’s team, are Tanner Buckman, Aaron Peters, Austin Renyolds.
Another point that is likely to help Dempsey and the Panthers is his experience. This season will be Dempsey’s first as a head coach after spending the last two seasons as an assistant to Palmyra head coach Matt Thomas. Dempsey said the time he spent under Thomas gave him a good understanding of the other teams in the conference. He said that makes his team even more dangerous because no other coach in the CCC knows what he will throw out on the court, including Thomas.
“With my youth and inexperience as a head coach, I have the advantage of knowing what everybody else is doing ... but nobody has a clue what I am going to do,” Dempsey said. “My whole philosophy is such that I want to make it so they can’t practice against it. You can’t simulate what we do at practice. That’s my goal.”
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Pride is something that you build.
Sometimes, it just so happens that it can be done in a physical manner.
That’s why Monroe City’s new head boys’ basketball coach Brad Dempsey is making a new locker room for his team. Right now, it’s at its foundation — just some cinder blocks on the floor, holding down a rug in a basement that is known to flood from time to time. But Dempsey envisions a room filled with hard-wood lockers, complete with slots for his players to put their nameplates.
“It’s something that they can be proud of,” Dempsey said. “That’s important to me, coming from a pride stance. Everything that I do to build pride in this program, people are just jumping all over it and they are excited.”
That is just one of the ways that this former Palmyra assistant head coach plans to bring the pride back to the Panthers.
After last season’s 6-19 record, the Panthers have plenty of work ahead of them. Monroe City finished its Clarence Cannon Conference schedule with a 1-6 record, averaging just under 35 points per game and suffering its biggest loss of the season after a 97-49 defeat at the hands of the South Shelby Cardinals.
It is for reasons like those that Dempsey said he has spent much of his time breaking bad habits his players have developed. While he said that he has no disrespect for the way former Monroe City boys’ head basketball coach Rick Baker did things, Dempsey has a completely different idea of what is going to work for the team.
“It’s being aggressive versus being passive,” Dempsey said. “They played a 1-3-1 zone for years. With that type of defense, you are sitting in passing lanes and trying to confuse the defense. This is high school basketball. You are not going to run against teams that have more than two or three good ball-handlers. ... We want to pressure the defense.”
“What do we have to lose?” Dempsey said. “We won six games last year. Nobody thinks we are going to be very good. It means nothing to me. Nobody respects Monroe City basketball, so it’s the best situation. We’ll be the underdog all year. Even when we win games, we’ll be the underdog because everybody will say how beatable we are.”
Some of that teaching will be easier with some of the players. Dempsey has spent the off-season getting familiar Monroe City names like Joe Chin and C.J. Hayden to come out for their first year of high school basketball, adding some serious size the Panther roster.
Dempsey said that it is that size, coupled with a hard-nosed attitude, which will win his team basketball games.
“We will be one of the bigger teams [in the area] for the first time in a long time,” Dempsey said. “Fundamentally, we are behind everybody and we will be all year. But, that gives me the opportunity to play a style that adapts to our athleticism, not our fundamentals. When you watch Monroe City play, you aren’t going to walk into the gym and say ‘That’s a great fundamental basketball team.’ They are going to walk into the gym and say ‘That’s a hard-working, get-after-it basketball team. It’s never going to be pretty and I don’t expect that.”
Not all of his squad is made up of newcomers. Dempsey will get the advantage of a multitude of returning members from last season, after graduating just three seniors at the end of last year. Included in that group of returning members, which Dempsey said he sees as real cores of this year’s team, are Tanner Buckman, Aaron Peters, Austin Renyolds.
Another point that is likely to help Dempsey and the Panthers is his experience. This season will be Dempsey’s first as a head coach after spending the last two seasons as an assistant to Palmyra head coach Matt Thomas. Dempsey said the time he spent under Thomas gave him a good understanding of the other teams in the conference. He said that makes his team even more dangerous because no other coach in the CCC knows what he will throw out on the court, including Thomas.
“With my youth and inexperience as a head coach, I have the advantage of knowing what everybody else is doing ... but nobody has a clue what I am going to do,” Dempsey said. “My whole philosophy is such that I want to make it so they can’t practice against it. You can’t simulate what we do at practice. That’s my goal.”
