I have been lucky enough to coach both Jason Franzen and Pete Alexandrou when they were each just 14 years old. So if I indeed know something about this game, they do too. Many years after first coaching them, my son was 14 and starting high school, so I recruited each of them to help coach him at the school he attended. I had stayed in touch with both and knew they were the perfect men to do for him what I would struggle to do, as his father.

I chose those men for a reason, and after four years, as my son readies himself to join a college basketball team that last season finished in the top five in America, he is still working with their new team every day he can before he heads to college for good. That is not a coincidence. They inspire their players, they work tirelessly with me to develop individual and team-wide systems that will feature the talent of their players at optimum levels, and they meet the challenge of finding scholarships for players expertly.

Many college coaches who came to their practices last year told me it was the best high school practice they had seen in years. I know they were telling the truth. As a coach and a father, I could not have asked for anything more from either of them. There is no high school or post grad program in America I’d trust to coach young men I care about more than those two men I coached once, long ago.