Gators From The Ground Up
Gateway basketball planting roots in the community
By Zak Koeske

The Gateway Gators varsity basketball squad circles up around halfcourt to stretch out before their after-school practice.

"I don't hear anything. You guys need to count out the stretches," assistant coach Marvin Wright encourages from the bleachers.

A soft but unified murmur of ones, twos and threes begins to reverberate from the circle.

Head coach Mitch Adams' attention has been diverted to Rob Krimmel, an assistant hoops coach at St. Francis who is sitting in on the practice for recruiting purposes. Adams has been busy enlightening Krimmel on the positive attributes of the multiple Gateway players on SFU's radar, but can't resist interjecting.

"If they don't count, put their asses on the goddamn line!" he shouts. Adams' visitor chuckles.

Tough love has always been Adams' calling card. Although he swears that he's significantly toned it down over his 20-plus years of coaching, it's hard to tell. He's got the part of the gruff, in-your-face drill sergeant down to a "T," choosing to allow his assistants to be the good cops.

"In this new day and age of player, you can't be like I was. Do I still get in people's faces? Yeah. But it's more of a teaching deal than a yelling deal. I want the kids to have my intensity and it's coming through with them. These kids understand what I want, how I want it and why I want it. Now, my assistants, they are my calming influence. They know when to pick a kid up if he's down."

In his fifth year as head coach, Adams has slowly but surely turned around the basketball program at a school where football has historically been king.

Since Gateway opened its doors in 1958, the basketball team has won a mere six section championships. For a little perspective, the football team has won that many section titles since current coach Terry Smith took over in 2002.

After a strong finish last year with a very young team, Adams' squad is expected to contend for a section title this season because of the potential they return. With the Gators carrying as many as five Division I prospects on their roster, the sky is truly the limit for this bunch.

This kind of talent in general, let alone on one team, hasn't been seen in these parts too often, if ever, in recent years. Schenley's run with DeJuan and Greg Blair, D.J. Kennedy, Deandre Kane and Jamaal Bryant a couple years back was the rare exception.

The first thing one notices about this Gateway team is their size. The Gators top five are actually taller than Pitt's starting five at every spot but center, and even that's close.

But while their height certainly plays a role, the success of this Gators team is due to more than just a freakishly tall crop of Monroeville and Pitcairn kids coincidentally hitting high school around the same time. This group is skilled, disciplined and has learned to play together.

They represent the prototype for what Mitch Adams is trying to build at Gateway-a feeder system through the area's youth leagues that can continually filter a pipeline of refined, intelligent players starting as early as first grade all the way up to the high school level-essentially creating a perpetual pool of talented hoopers.

It's the same approach taken by high school football powerhouses around the country, including Gateway, whose current AD and head football coach Terry Smith resurrected the program with a similar approach. Smith says that when hiring coaches for any sport at the school, he requires that candidates reach out to the local community in an attempt to draw more kids into the sport.

"When I was a little kid playing midget football in this community, [legendary Gateway football coach] Pete Antimarino was visible and always around. You saw him and there was always a direct connection between the high school and the midget leagues. I felt like that was something that was good and necessary," said Smith, whose football program holds clinics for the youth teams' coaching staffs in order to unify terminology and familiarize kids with the Gateway system and its expectations as early on in their development as possible.

In basketball, Adams' greatest contribution has been the Little Dribblers program he started with longtime basketball instructor George Siford. The program enrolls anywhere from 25 to 50 children per session, is offered from first grade up until high school and teaches kids basic ball handling skills. Current high school players act as the program's instructors, allowing for a crucial and direct connection to form between the current and future generations of Gateway basketball players.

In addition to the Little Dribblers program, players from the 7th, 8th and 9th grade teams run the same offensive and defensive sets as the varsity and are also invited to open gym and conditioning workouts with the varsity.

"It has made the older kids become mentors to the younger kids and now that's all they talk about. Now these younger kids are starting to come to our games because they want to be like the varsity kids and some of our varsity kids even go down to the 7th and 8th grade games. It's big for those younger kids and it makes them want to perform when the varsity kids are watching," Adams said.

"We have a lot of kids at Gateway that are becoming smart basketball players, like Terry has gotten smart football players. It's something that you're building to make things better. You've got to have kids with intelligence to play the game."

To develop smart players he has them study film and takes them to college games. He also believes that the AAU system, which most of his players utilize, has helped immensely in helping kids develop better basketball IQ.

Off to a quick start this year, the Gators won their first two conference games by 20 or more points, but Adams says there's still plenty of work to be done before he considers his program a success.

"We're not there yet. We're not there yet by any stretch of the imagination. We need to keep getting better each and every day."