The legendary Coach Ray McCallum

[Hoopster_Now_In_DC]

For those of you that ran coach McCallum out of town, shame on you! This man was a jewel when it came to identifying talent. His teams were always entertaining and always in the fight. In retrospect, he did enough to leave on his own terms.

Have any of you seen the likes of Holman, Ray jr. (local), Doug Anderson (local) Evan Bruinsma (local) Nick Minnerath (Local), Anton Wilson (local), Carlton Brundidge (local), Juwan Howard, Jr. (local) since his departure?

[ptctitan]

I share your deep disappointment in yesterday's result. But I won't rewrite history to fit a narrative.

Ray was 1-5 versus Oakland after it entered the HL. And, by your admission, he had all that great local talent on his rosters. Ray's 2011-12 HL championship team started that HL season 1-4 before turning things around. How were you feeling back then about our prospects when we started 1-4 in the league? If you recall, Holman missed 10 games (including our first 2 HL games).

Ray Jr was about 24 months more local than Antoine. Minnerath was from Massachusetts but played at a State JUCO. Matt Johnson is as good as Wilson. Rose and Fraser are as good as Brundidge. Kuol is as good or better than Howard, Jr.

I'm not happy about yesterday's result and about how we played. But I'm not going to engage in selective memory about the past. We have much work to do and much improvement to make. I trust that our players understand that and will make a much better effort today.

[udballer]

I trust that our players understand that and will make a much better effort today.

They did. They still lost, but they did.

[dennycrane]

Legendary is a word which should be used for real legends, Hoopster. As you point out, Ray Sr. was able to assemble talent on his 8 Titan teams, And he conducted himself as a gentleman as well. Ray's shortcoming was that he was not a good bench coach. He annually lost about 4 close games which could have gone our way with different strategies, different playcalling. Even in the championship season, the team had 13 losses by Selection Sunday. With that many, it did not merit a seed higher than 15, which slotted us against a strong Kansas team in Omaha NE. Real success is about advancing in the national tournament, winning at least one game, maybe two. Getting there is nice but we should strive for better.