THE GAZETTE
Wednesday, August 7, 2013 p
Page B-5
Switching sides: Bullis boys’ assistant becomes girls’ coach Basketball: Perrow previously coached at Archbishop Carroll n
BY
DAN FELDMAN STAFF WRITER
When the Bullis School boys’ basketball team left town for a winter break tournament two years ago, assistant coach Clinton Perrow insisted the team eat at Golden Corral, though head coach Bruce Kelley wasn’t immediately keen on the buffet. “He looked at me like I was out of my mind,” Perrow said. “I said, ‘Coach, I’m telling you, there’s something there for everybody. It’s easy. You don’t have
to worry about it.’” Bullis went to Golden Corral that night and won its next game. Again, Perrow insisted the team eat at his lucky restaurant, and again, Kelley resisted. “Through a force of personality and tempting fate, we’re right back there at the GC,” Kelley said. “All you can eat. “It’s bad food. You’ve gotta go. You can’t jinx it.” In all, Bullis has eaten five meals at the Golden Corral in the last two years while playing in tournaments in South Carolina and Florida. After those meals, Bullis is 5-0 and has won both tournaments. Bullis is hoping Perrow brings that good fortune — and force of personality — to its girls’ pro-
gram, hiring him as its new head coach. Prior to joining Bullis’ boys’ staff, Perrow served as coach of Archbishop Carroll High School’s boys’ and girls’ teams at different points. “Young ladies want to be coached just like you coach guys,” Perrow said. “They don’t want any sugarcoating. They don’t want you to go soft on them or anything like that. ... Communication is very key. If you have good communication skills and you can teach the game, it’s really not that big of a difference.” Kelley believes Perrow’s ability to communicate will not be an issue. “He never has any down days,” Kelley said. “... The con-
nection that he makes with kids — he can pull and push, and they know that he cares. “So, he’s able to get out of them than they might have originally thought they can give.” Kelley first observed Perrow when they coached against each other, Perrow guiding Archbishop Carroll’s boys’ team in the Bullis Holiday Classic. “I liked the energy that he brought from the bench,” Kelley said. “I liked the energy that the team played with. Over a threeday tournament, I’m there the whole time, and it didn’t wane. I wanted to coach with that guy.” Archbishop Carroll dismissed Perrow during the 2008-09 season after two of his players fought each other on the bench during
a game. Later in 2009, Perrow joined Kelley’s staff. Kelley didn’t set a specific role for Perrow, letting the assistant gravitate toward the area of his choosing on the fly. Soon enough, Perrow began fine-tuning Bullis’ defense, and that’s where he said his concentration will be with the girls. “We really want to set to the tone by just being a really aggressive, hard-nosed defensive team that really gets after you,” Perrow said. “That’s just who I am.” He said he is hoping to bring identity to a successful program that could suddenly use it. Perrow becomes Bullis’ third coach in three seasons. “I didn’t take the job to be gone in one or two years or three
years or four years or even five years,” Perrow said. “I took the job for longevity. I took the job, because I really like the school.” As Perrow puts his mark on the program, he hopes to schedule out-of-town trips during winter breaks. It’s too late to schedule trips for the upcoming season, and he’s unsure yet about future years. But he brings at least some certainty to the program, which will be seen whenever Perrow takes his first long trip with his new team. “The girls are definitely going to Golden Corral,” Perrow said. “I can guarantee you that.” dfeldman@gazette.net
Some county basketball teams leave the comfort zone While most participate in county summer league, others go elsewhere n
BY
TRAVIS MEWHIRTER STAFF WRITER
GREG DOHLER/THE GAZETTE
Montgomery Blair High School boys basketball coach Damon Pigrom said he took his team to Washington, D.C.’s summer league so that they would be exposed to teams they don’t normally see. we’re seeing in Montgomery County. It’s summer league so I don’t know how many teams are slowing down and running things, and the referees are letting the kids play and they’re getting tougher, which is good.” Whether it be shaking up the Xs and Os or taking his team elsewhere during the off-season, everything Pigrom has done so far seems to be working. In following up one of the most successful seasons in nearly a decade (15-9), Pigrom took his team down to Woodrow Wilson for a summer league along with Northwood, Wheaton, Theodore Roosevelt, Princeton Day Acad-
emy and a handful of others. The Blazers made it to the title game, beating Princeton Day in the semifinals. “The kids, they bought in,” Pigrom said. “I think they looked
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Montgomery Blair High School boys’ basketball coach Damon Pigrom said he could probably recite Clarksburg’s roster and could spit out a scouting report without reviewing game film. He knows the matchups, what defense his Blazers will likely see, what offense they should run. It’s information learned through the four monthlong basketball season. To avoid the monotony of doing it all over again during the summer, Pigrom, and other Montgomery County coaches, said they take their teams outside the county, where they will be tested against unfamiliar opponents, schemes and styles of play. This year’s Montgomery County summer league featured the usual suspects, a mix of private and public schools and even one, River Hill, from outside Montgomery’s borders. The Blazers suited up in Washington, D.C. this summer, taking part in two summer leagues in the district where they played teams they knew very little. “We want to face different people,” Pigrom said. “To play the same people over summer and over season, it’s just too much. “The teams that we’re playing, they’re more athletic than
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at the things they accomplished this past year and want to keep that going. Fifteen wins is more than we’ve had in almost a decade. They’re all hungry to expand upon what we did last year.”
The majority of local teams play in The Rock at High Point or DeMatha’s BSN as a side to the county league. Some even do all three, essentially seeing the same schools over and over. That’s why Sharief Hashim took his Wheaton team to Wilson as well. “It’s great, I’m a huge proponent of that,” he said. “It’s just important. A lot of my kids don’t play [Amateur Athletic Union] so getting out of the county is big, getting out of our comfort zone is big.” Hashim and the Knights split their time between the comfort zone of Montgomery County’s ‘B’ division and Wilson, playing enough games where “it kind of had an AAU type feel,” he said. “My kids just got to play a lot of basketball. It was definitely a productive summer. I feel good, it was a nice summer for us.” And still other teams, John F. Kennedy for example, opt to not play as a unit over summer at all. With unavoidable absences due to vacations, jobs, AAU tournaments and various other summer commitments, the group put on the floor during a summer
league game is barely representative of the team that will be suiting up over winter for the regular season. “I thought it was a waste of time with kids out of town with AAU every weekend,” said Kennedy coach Diallo Nelson, who had the Cavaliers play at The Rock the past three years but chose not to participate in an official league this summer. “They were gone almost every Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. As far as getting better as a team, I didn’t see the benefit.” So, rather than put together a haphazardly assembled group of junior varsity players and AAU stragglers, Nelson scheduled circuit training and shoot-arounds, keeping the workouts concentrated on his players honing individual skills. “As an ex-player and collegiate coach, I understand the importance of the off-season,” Nelson said. “And from March to November, you work on your individual skills. And from November to March, you work on getting better as a team.”