Start of season extra special for seven new boys basketball coaches in Berks
2023 Berks basketball coverage presented by
Utilities Employees Credit Union
In a season of change around the Berks Conference nowhere is that more evident than in the coaching box where seven Berks boys teams begin the season tonight with a new head coach.
Since the end of last season coaches at Conrad Weiser, Exeter, Hamburg, Kutztown, Oley Valley, Reading High and Wyomissing have resigned, retired, been replaced, or stepped down for all sorts of reasons.
Rick Perez surprised many when he announced in October that he was leaving Reading High after 12 seasons and three state championships, the most recent in March.
Matt Ashcroft stunned people when he stepped down at Exeter just a couple months after taking the Eagles to the PIAA championship game.
Five of the seven first-year coaches are new to the scene: Only Francis Camara at Reading High and Garrett Etzel at Wyomissing were on staff with their current team last season.
Hamburg’s Will Wilson will be the first of the seven to get on the court: The Hawks open Friday night in their tipoff tournament. Mike Dooley at Conrad Weiser and Chad Walter at Twin Valley make their debuts Saturday.
Camara doesn’t get started until Tuesday, at Central York. Etzel won’t make his head coaching debut until Dec. 11, which is a good thing since a bunch of his guys are still playing football and might be on Dec. 9 should they beat Northwestern Lehigh Friday in a state semifinal.
Here’s a closer look at each of the new coaches:
Conrad Weiser
Mike Dooley comes to Robesonia by way of Ohio, where he was a 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.
He’s very familiar with the local scene. He coached girls basketball at Pottsville, was a women’s assistant at Alvernia and previously worked local youth camps with former Reading High assistant Jeff Sparrow. Also, his fiancé, Kaitlyn Yoh, played at Alvernia and graduated from Conrad Weiser. That’s how he heard about the local opening.
He takes over a team with promise and two of the league’s top shooters in Brady McKee and Donovan Gingrich. He’s also got his work cut out for him. The Scouts finished just 7-15 last season and they’ve got some stiff competition in Division II of Berks Conference, where Exeter and Berks Catholic reside.
Dooley likes the fact that he has plenty of scorers on hand but his first priority is to make sure they play both ends of the floor.
“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.”
Sparrow hired Dooley to help coach at his Point Blank Period training facility and in camps. 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.
Dooley makes his Weiser debut Saturday at Antietam.
Exeter
Jeff VanGorder inherits one of the best teams in the league, one which returns all-division picks Kevin Saenz and Reece Garvin and sophomore Aidan Dauble, who had a tremendous freshman year and came up big in the postseason.
The 35-year-old VanGorder is not unfamiliar with the program, or the school district. He briefly lived in Exeter Township a few years ago before taking a job with the Ursinus men’s basketball program and moving to Perkiomenville, where he still resides.
His wife Laura (formerly Turner), a Wilson grad, lived in the Exeter district and teaches in the Daniel Boone district. Her parents live in the Exeter district.
VanGorder happened to stop by the Eagles’ gym a few years ago to catch a game. He liked the atmosphere and said he has heard nothing but good things from his in-laws about the area.
“Being familiar with the district and comfortable with the families in the district made it really appealing,” he said of the Exeter job.
VanGorder is currently the director for Pro Skills Basketball Philadelphia. He’ll continue in that capacity while coaching the Eagles.
He has coached at Muhlenberg College, Carnegie Mellon, Muhlenberg College and Hamilton College over the past decade but his work with the PSB AAU teams – and other AAU programs in earlier years — has given him direct contact with high school-age players, which should prove beneficial in his new gig.
The Eagles went 27-7, won their first District 3 championship and made a stirring run through the PIAA Tournament last season.
Two months after that joyride ended head coach Matt Ashcroft dropped a bombshell, saying he was resigning after just four seasons on the job.
Exeter doesn’t play for another week, when it will host the City of Basketball Love showcase. The Eagles open against Archbishop Carroll.
Hamburg
Will Wilson previously coached in the Hamburg program, enjoyed working in the community, and was drawn to the Hawks’ job when Kevin McFarland stepped down shortly after last season.
“It seemed like a good fit for both the school district and myself to be able to positively influence some young folks’ lives,” he said.
Wilson has spent much of the last 15 years coaching at the youth level and running youth leagues in and around Reading. He also spent one season coaching at the junior high level and Muhlenberg and three years as a JV coach at Hamburg under Brian Weller, from 2010-13.
The 39-year-old Reading High grad sees basketball as a way to develop and positively influence young people and that’s what he’ll try to do as Hamburg’s boys basketball coach.
“My mission is community enrichment through youth development,” he said. “If we’re doing that through sport it’s even better. We’re able to do that through basketball with this opportunity.”
Wilson returned to coaching at the high school level last season as the JV coach for McFarland.
Wilson has his work cut out for him: The Hawks are starting over after graduating a pair of all-division players and losing their top six scorers.
Ty Werley, who played in every game last season and averaged 6.7 points, broke his ankle late in the football season and is out; he would’ve been the leading return scorer. They head into the season with a roster that combined for all of three 3-pointers and two free throws last season.
The Hawks open at home Friday against Northern Lehigh in the second game of a doubleheader. Annville-Cleona and Shenandoah meet in the opener at 7.
Kutztown
Eric Luckenbill never envisioned himself as a basketball coach.
Years ago he offered to keep the scorebook at Emmaus, where he teaches social studies. That drew him deeper into the game: The X’s and O’s, game strategy, scouting.
Soon he became a volunteer coach. He coached at the middle school level. Then with the freshman team. Then the JV team. Eventually he became a varsity assistant with the Green Hornets.
Thursday night the 37-year-old Luckenbill, a 2007 Kutztown grad, makes his debut as head coach of the Cougars when they open their season at Salisbury.
“I’m excited to bring what I’ve done here at Emmaus and make something that works for all of us,” Luckenbill said. “Living in Fleetwood and working at Emmaus, there’s only a couple of jobs I thought would be a good fit. It took the right fit for me to leave, and I really do feel like I’ve found it at Kutztown.”
Luckenbill replaces Craig Mogel, who resigned shortly after completing his fourth season with the Cougars.
The Cougars reached the postseason just once in the last four years. Other than two seasons under Ted Snyder – another Kutztown grad – from 2017-19, the program has known only sporadic success over the past two decades.
Luckenbill is hoping to change that.
“There’s been periods of time when there’s been great Kutztown basketball and I’m excited to try to bring that back,” he said. “I want to create a culture and a program that’s more than just from November to February.
The Cougars, after graduating four starters, are picked to finish fourth in Berks IV.
Oley Valley
(Clint Franks photo)
Chad Walters was not expecting to coach this season. Then, just weeks before the season, Matt Barrell resigned after 10 seasons with the Lynx due to personal reasons.
Walters was contacted and took the job, and it’s a good one. The Lynx have won two of the last three Berks IV titles and are favored to win another this season.
They have two of the best players in the league in Ben DeBalko and Davey Turchi and a roster full of multi-sport athletes who are used to winning in other sports, as well as basketball.
Walters hasn’t coached at Oley Valley, but he’s certainly familiar with the school. He was a standout for the Lynx in baseball, basketball and soccer, lives in the district and has a son in the basketball program.
He’s familiar with coaching, too. Few people have such a diverse resume: He was a head girls basketball coach at Fleetwood for five seasons and Daniel Boone for four, and head boys basketball coach at Twin Valley for six, resigning after the 2021-22 season.
He has coached baseball at Twin Valley and softball at Gov. Mifflin.
Saturday he’ll coach his first game with the Lynx when they open their season at home against Salisbury.
Reading High
The most anticipated opener of the season comes Tuesday at Central York when Francis Camara slides over one seat and debuts as Reading High’s head coach.
It’s always been one of the most demanding jobs around but the 33-year-old Reading High grad is more than ready and capable to handle the heat.
“The seat is only hot for people who aren’t prepared,” Camara said. “I don’t really feel pressure from within or even from the outside because I know I’m going to do everything in my power to be (successful).”
When Rick Perez was contemplating stepping down as Reading’s head coach he handed Camara the keys to the car – for a trial run.
He put the summer and fall programs in his top assistant’s hands and came away convinced Camara was ready to take the wheel on his own.
“He has what it takes,” Perez wrote in a letter to Reading Basketball Squires Club, the team’s booster club, upon announcing his resignation and throwing his full support behind his JV coach. “Francis Camara will be an outstanding coach.”
A month later the Reading School Board made it official, closing a chapter on the most successful run in Red Knights history.
Camara was aboard for a good bit of that; he was on Perez’s staff the past six seasons. He knows the program inside and out, and has coached all of the kids in it.
He has coached his son Jeremiah – a freshman and expected to be Reading’s next breakout star — and his classmates since they were third-graders.
“This is nothing new to me,” said Camara. “Obviously it’s on a different level. There’s going to be different challenges. I’m ready for those challenges and I’m willing to embrace them. I’m a solution-oriented guy who’s going to find a solution to all of those challenges.
“One thing I can promise: I will be a driven, motivated, emotional person who does nothing but try to pull the best out of the kids and well as myself and the staff.”
He joined Perez’s staff in 2017 as a volunteer assistant and said he was “blessed” to work with coaches such as Jai-T Randall, Matt Flowers, Jeff Sparrow and Perez. Those three former Perez assistants are all now head coaches.
“I had the opportunity to be a sponge and soak all that in,” he said. “I told myself: I’ll take a little bit of everything they had and add a little bit of my own. I’m 100 percent confident I can do a great job. I’m a fierce, fiery competitor, and I want to be the best at everything I do.”
Wyomissing
The Spartans should have a smooth transition with Garrett Etzel, who was in the program the past five seasons and worked closely with Ryan Ludwig, who resigned in March following six seasons leading the program.
(Alvernia University photo)
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 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.
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.
Etzel had the chance the work with his players throughout the spring and summer. Now, he’s got to wait for some of them to get finished with their fall sport before he can coach his first game as a head coach. That comes Dec. 11 against Daniel Boone.
