New Weiser basketball coach Mike Dooley hopes to copy success of Berks rivals

Mike Dooley has had enough exposure to Berks basketball to know whose lead to follow.

He’s seen teams such as Reading High and Wilson win consistently with defense and wants to bring that to Conrad Weiser, where he was officially approved as boys basketball coach by the school board Wednesday night.

“I would love to bring a toughness in terms of defense,” said the 29-year-old Downingtown East and Temple grad. “Coach (Matt) Coldren (at Wilson) and Coach (Rick) Perez (at Reading) have done phenomenal jobs in the way they build their programs through the way that they defend.”

Dooley will see plenty of that within his own division, where Exeter has risen to the top and Berks Catholic has remained there because of its defensive effort.

The Scouts made a lot of 3-pointers last season, and with Donovan Gingrich and Brady McKee returning they figure to hit a lot more next season.

Dooley knows there’s more to playing successful basketball than that and he’ll try to bring other elements into his program.

“I’m excited to get on the court with the boys, (and start) some team-bonding events,” Dooley said. “In high school sports that’s really, really important. Team culture, team togetherness, getting the kids to be excited to come to practice is really big for me.”

Dooley has not coached in the Berks Conference but has wide-ranging coaching experience at the high school, prep and college levels, with boys, girls and women.

He comes to Weiser from Ohio where he was head coach of a boys team at Spire Institute the past two seasons. He was named Ohio Prep Conference Coach of the Year after his team finished 19-10.

Prior to coaching at Spire he was the head girls basketball coach at Pottsville for two seasons, an assistant women’s coach at Alvernia University and Cecil College, and an assistant girls coach at Phoenixville.

His first dip into the Berks basketball pool was a memorable one as he worked with Jeff Sparrow and helped train Lonnie Walker IV and the state champion Red Knights.

Sparrow, a former Reading High assistant with Perez, hired Dooley to help coach at his Point Blank Period training facility and in camps.

“I loved how hungry he was, I loved how loyal he was,” said Sparrow, who brought Dooley to Spire to coach with him.  “He loved the game and he’s a hustler. I loved his initiative.”

While Dooley considers Sparrow his mentor Sparrow said he picked up things on the offensive end from Dooley that he incorporated into his own program.

“Offensively, he did a beautiful job at Pottsville (getting players to) not dribble (too much), set screens, slips, backdoors, just chopping people up,” Sparrow said. “His halfcourt offensive execution is very high level; it’ll pop off the page, especially with Brady and Donovan.”

Dooley was in Ohio when the Weiser job opened shortly after the season ended.

He heard about it through family and friends. His fiancé, Kaitlyn Yoh, who played at Alvernia University, is a Weiser grad who lives in the area.

Dooley said he was looking to relocate to this area and the Weiser job “checked a lot of boxes for me.”

While coaching at Point Blank Dooley helped train a number of fledgling Berks players who are now at the high school level, including Gingrich and McKee.

Gingrich averaged 14.3 points per game last season as a sophomore and made 60 3-pointers, more than any underclassman in the league.

McKee, also as a sophomore, averaged 12.3 points and made 57 3’s. Weiser returns its top six scorers from last season, when it finished 3-9 in Berks II and 7-15 overall.

“The kids are gonna love him,” Sparrow said. “He’s gonna develop genuine relationships with those kids.

“He’s gonna bring a work ethic that’s going to out-do a lot of people. He’s going to go all-in on that like it’s his full-time job, and they’ll be a contender sooner than later.”

Dooley is a 2016 graduate of Temple University’s Fox School of Business. During his time at Temple he served as a volunteer coach for the Owls’ women’s basketball team. He has a master’s degree in sports administration from Arkansas State.

“I want to build a program that the community really supports,” Dooley said. “There’s a lot of potential for that. We can have a program that people are excited about.”