New Wyomissing basketball coach Garrett Etzel anxious for summer season
Garrett Etzel didn’t score a point for Gov. Mifflin as a sophomore, unusual for a player who went on to be a 1,000-point scorer and Hall-of-Famer at the next level.
He spent the spring and summer before his junior year playing in every league and hitting every basketball camp he could find. When he wasn’t at one of them he was playing on the courts outside Mifflin Intermediate long after the sun went down.
“I just committed to the game,” said Etzel. “Basketball was my sport. I focused on it year-round.”
If Etzel can get his players at Wyomissing to attack the game with the same passion the Spartans will be able to flip their losing record of last season return to the postseason.
Etzel, an assistant coach at Wyomissing the past five seasons, has been named the Spartans’ head coach, succeeding Ryan Ludwig.
He was formally approved by the Wyomissing School Board Monday night.
Etzel and Ludwig met at Alvernia years ago. Etzel joined the coaching staff a year after his senior season with the then Crusaders. Ludwig was playing in the program at the time. He saw the dedication and knowledge Etzel brought to the sport and lured him onto his coaching staff at Wyomissing.
“When I first started (Wyomissing football coach) Bob Wolfrum told me it was important to have coaches around you that you trusted,” Ludwig said, “and I had full trust in everything I did with Garrett. The last five years I didn’t make a decision without first consulting him.”
Ludwig, who resigned as head coach in March following six seasons leading the Spartans, praised Etzel for his in-game decision-making and his ability to work with players in practice.
“He’s good at developing skill guys,” Ludwig said. “That’s his bread and butter. He’s amazing shooting coach.”
That figures since Etzel was such a big scorer himself. He dropped 42 points on Conestoga Valley in Mifflin’s season-opener in 2003. That’s still a program record.
As a junior he teamed with Brandon Smith to lead the Mustangs to 22 victories, second-most in program history.
Etzel was an All-Berks pick with the Mustangs as a senior in 2003 when he averaged 19.8 points.
He went on to an outstanding career at Alvernia where he averaged 17.4 points as a senior and was named PAC Player of the Year after leading Alvernia to back-to-back league championships.
He topped 1,000 career points and is among the program’s Top 10 in 3-pointers, 3-point shooting percentage and steals.
He was inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame in 2019.
Etzel, 38, is anxious to get going, and his first season begins shortly.
Summer league play opens at the end of the month and that, he said, will be critical in seeing the Spartans rebound from an 8-14 season.
“I want everyone to (know they’re) competing for a position, and it starts now,” Etzel said. “It starts at summer league and it starts at camps. I want to see these kids working on their game.
“We have a decent amount of guys coming back who saw time at the varsity level. We’ve got some really good kids coming up from the JV team. And, from what I hear, we have a good group coming in as ninth-graders. I’m looking forward to getting in the gym and going to work with these kids.”
