By BOB ETTINGER - bettinger@starbeacon.com
Staff Writer
—
Having served as an assistant coach in a couple of different sports since he was a teenager, Ryan Looman decided the time was right to head up his own program.
Looman, the son of Ed and Carol Looman, will take over the SS. John and Paul boys basketball team after serving as an assistant football coach over the last eight seasons and a junior high girls basketball coach over the the last couple.
“I had been the junior high girls basketball coach at SJP the last several years,” Looman, a social studies teacher at Conneaut High School, said. “I knew the situation and I saw an ad in the paper so I talked to a couple of people. I talked with (SJP girls basketball coach) Nick Iarocci and Mr. (SJP athletic director Dave) Rozzo. I went from there.”
Running his own basketball program wasn’t exactly what Looman, 26, had in mind. But the lure of his alma mater coulcn’t be avoided.
“In the back of my mind (I had thought about taking my own basketball program),” Looman said. “I’d always been a football coach. That’s where I started. The idea of coaching always interested me. I always had a big passion for it.
“I went to the right situation to get into coaching varsity basketball at that level.”
Having played for the man he is replacing, Tom Penna, who resigned last spring, Looman wants to continue what his former coach started.
“Coach Penna took over when I was a senior,” Looman said. “He had those hopes (to build a program). When you’re short players, that hurts plans. I want to continue that and work our way up stage-by-stage, step-by-step.
“I wouldn’t have taken the job if they said they wanted to win now and forget about the future. We want to build this program from sixth, seventh and eighth grade up. We want the kids to be ready to play high school basketball when they get to us.
“We want them to be on the same page as their coach.”
Looman knows that SJP is in a far different situation than when he was a student there.
“It’s a unique opportunity,” he said. “Times have changed a little bit. There aren’t 25 or 30 kids wanting to play on the basketball team. But that doesn’t change the type of kids we have. The goals... our main goal is to compete and win, not just go out and finish the game with a full team on the floor.
“I’m able to do that at my alma mater. It’s an exciting opportunity.
There was a point in time I wanted to (coach) at other schools. But I’m familiar with (SJP), the surroundings, the people the kids. That makes it a lot easier.on me.”
The schedule should help Looman in his first season. It has been built to ensure the Heralds can compete.
“As of right now, almost every school on our schedule is a varsity game,” Looman said. “We will put a team together and expect to compete on that level. We will plays schools in a similar situation we’re going to be in. It’s going to be tremendously helpful to us.
“It’s tough for the kids to go out every night and be undermanned. We’ll play schools that are closer in size and numbers to us. That gives the kids a fighting chance. I think that’s something we can use to our advantage.”
Looman will employ a system that should allow the Heralds some success.
“We’re not going to be a run and gun team,” Looman said. “We can’t go out on the floor and run with our numbers. On defense, we will slow it down and pack it in in a zone. That gives us the ability to have healthy bodies on the floor and stay out of foul trouble.
“On offense, we can’t rely on one or two people to score. All five guys will have to work together and contribute.”
