The real reason Rick Perez is leaving Reading High basketball
On what was one of the most memorable nights of Rick Perez’s monumental coaching career at Reading High he realized it was time for it to end.
After a stirring 68-65 comeback win over Cardinal O’Hara that made him the winningest basketball coach in Red Knights history he looked into the stands, where his wife and children sat during home games.
The spot was vacant.
Rick Perez knew. It was time.
“I know the rules,” he said.
This is the rule in the Perez household: No matter how big a game Rick and the Red Knights are playing – division showdown with rival Wilson, Holiday Tournament final, district playoff game – it is not the biggest game of night.
Not if Jadin, Kalib or Leana have a game that night. They are priority No. 1 in the Perez household. Rick’s high school sweetheart Kristin will be at the kids’ game, not at her husband’s.
Rick may be a three-time Pennsylvania Coach of the Year and known across state basketball circles for the rare passion and dedication he elicits from his players but when it comes to family he is part of it, not all of it.
“We laid that down as a family,” Perez said. “Go be where the kids are. They’re way more important than us.”
Rick Perez is all about family. He’s always said that. He’s always coached that way. That’s one of the primary reasons he’s had such enormous success with the Red Knights, winning three PIAA championships in a seven-year span: Because his players are family. They know it and they play all-out, all the time, for him and for each other.
It’s what has come to define Reading High basketball . . . it’s what other coaches long for but few achieve.
The chest-bumps, the hugs, the tight post-game circles, players and coaches with arms wrapped around each other, is all genuine. The love runs deep. And it’s why Perez is leaving his basketball family after 12 seasons – 21 if you count his time as an assistant coach in the program.
Family.
“Family is what it’s all about,” he said last week after dropping the bombshell. “That’s what it’s forever going to be about for me.”
That’s why late last week he made the jaw-dropping announcement he was leaving the program. Fans throughout Reading and the state were stunned: Why leave when you’re on top, when things are going so well, they wondered?
Perez and longtime wing man Matt Flowers discovered the keys to the code for Reading High basketball several years ago. Once they did they created a dynasty, elevating their program to the highest level.
They not only won state titles but they did it against the best, twice beating Philadelphia Catholic League teams in the championship game: Archbishop Wood in 2021, Roman Catholic in 2023. The Philly Catholic league is at the top of the food chain in Pennsylvania basketball and Perez and the Red Knights ate their lunch. And they did it without Lonnie Walker IV on the court.
The future NBA lottery pick was there for the first title run in 2017 but the program proved to be the real deal when it won it without him a few years later. And then again in March.
While Perez’s decision seemed stunning to many it wasn’t to those close to the program, or who were paying close attention. The signs were there late last year; you could tell if you watched and listened closely.
Perez didn’t want to say anything at the time – he was too committed to the program to drop the ball in midseason, or before things were put in place to assure its continued success – but he knew in his heart he was in his last lap with the Red Knights.
He turned the critical summer and fall seasons over to his top assistants, Francis Camara and Brian Bankert, and observed from afar. When he saw that things were running smoothly his mind was made up. He was out.
Did he wait until such a late juncture – roughly a month before the start of practice – so that he could essentially hand-pick his successor, Camara? Probably. He wouldn’t be the first coach to do that. Dean Smith did it at North Carolina, handing the keys to longtime assistant Bill Guthridge just weeks before the start of the 1997 season.
Camara isn’t officially the coach yet; that won’t come until a board meeting next week.
In Perez’s mind it’s a done deal; he has already moved on. Earlier this week he began the next stage of his basketball coaching journey – as an assistant coach at Muhlenberg.
Again, that will stun some people – but not if you’ve been listening closely over the years.
Muhlenberg is Perez’s alma mater. It’s where Flowers has been the head coach the last two seasons. It’s where Jadin, a 10th-grader, plays. It’s where Kalib, an eighth-grader, and Leana, a seventh-grader, will go to school.
Family. Family. Family. That’s the guiding force here.
While it may seem odd – even unprecedented – for someone to go from head coach of a state championship team to assistant coach a few months later it’s a natural move for Perez.
“I don’t care if I’m the chief or the indian, that’s not what it’s about,” he said. “It’s about family. I gotta go be with my babies . . . I gotta go be with my brother . . . I’ve gotta support him.”
Perez and Flowers played basketball and football together at Muhlenberg. They have been tight ever since. They are brothers in every sense of the word (except for biologically). Their families are close – literally. Rick can see Matt’s backyard from his home in Laureldale.
(Rob Flowers, also a former Muhls teammate and who coached football at Reading while Rick and his brother Matt coached basketball there, lives across the street from Perez.)
Perez wants to – needs to – stay connected to the game. He sees no better way right now than to do it at home alongside his brother. Years from now, once his own children are out of school, he’ll look to run his own program once again. But not right now.
“Matt Flowers has protected me in ways that people would never sacrifice for another person,” he said. “He rolled out that red carpet so that I could go out and do what needed to be done (as coach at Reading). I’m gonna go out and roll out the yellow carpet for him and do exactly what he did for me.
“What we did at Reading, that was us; that was a product of our family. That was what we did together. (Now we’re going to) do the same thing.”
