With the basketball season just two months away, the Tartan Pride are gearing up for a season where most players are returning for their sophomore year with Coach Price. Since Sinclair is a community college where most people only stay for a couple years, if that, recruiting is kind of like a revolving door.
“Once you get use to that recruiting cycle. I come from the NCAA side. I was a division II coach in West Virginia where you usually only have to bring in two or three kids in a recruiting class. You’ve got guys for four years. Usually in division II you only have 10 scholarships so you don’t have as much resources to devote to recruiting so once you get here, you really have to cycle up,” says Coach Price.
For this year, Price is excited to work with all the returning players from last year to continue to grow and be a better team.
“One of our returning players is Marcellus Washington. He is going to be one of our team leaders. He has a lot of upside and is going to be a division I recruit. He is a guy everyone will key on right off the bat,” says Price.
“We also have a guy named Jalen Robertson. Jalen is 6’8” from West Virginia. He is also top 10 in Sinclair history for blocked shots already. Also a front man for us is Stephen Pierre who is 6’7”, who is 12th in blocked shots. He gives a lot of people a lot of trouble. Caleb Walker, 6’4”, out of Gahanna Christian in Columbus can knock down shots,” explains Price.
Price goes into each season with the mentality that every freshman they pick up, may not be back for the following season. Luckily, for this season at least, all but two players are sophomores. However, that is not exactly Price’s goal. Price’s intention is to get players onto their four year school.
“My philosophy for basketball, and always has been, if I can get a young man in, get him recruited, and get him out after one year, I’ve done what I’m supposed to do. I want to get them to their four year school as fast as possible. That is my commitment to them,” says Price.
Price seems driven to help his players grow into successful, young men as well as help their performance on the court. Which is refreshing, considering how many players you see on the pro levels get arrested for anything from marijuana to murder. If you were to turn on any sports talk show, chances are that somewhere along the line in their segment, they are going to bring up a recent domestic abuse case. Which is fine to talk about, but to hear from a head coach that is attempting to do good for his community is something you don’t get to talk about every day.
Price continued on to talk about the three C’s, something that I have not heard of. The three C’s are one of the staples of athletics at Sinclair. The three C’s are community, classroom, and competition. Price holds his student-athletes accountable for these “three C’s”.
“We are going to be very good in the community. We are going to do a lot of community service. We are going to be good in the classroom. We have had several All-Americans academics. And, of course, we are going to be good in competition,” says Price.
Coach Price says “At the end of the day, you can hang all the banners in the gym you want. Our success is measured by our students.”
Matt Summers
Sports Editor