Nored brings Butler way to high school team
by Mike Lopresti, USA TODAY Sports
BROWNSBURG, Ind. — Ronald Nored — that name might ring a Final Four bell — is only 22. Guys that age are still at fraternity parties, not head varsity coaches in the high-octane world of Indiana high school basketball.
In other words, how do you lower the boom and bench starters on academic issues when you look almost young enough to play in the pep band?
Well, he can.
Ronald Nored? A guard on Butler’s two teams that Cinderella-ed their way into the national championship game. Now coach of the Brownsburg Bulldogs, a 40-minute drive from Butler’s campus.
“This is all I’ve wanted to do for a very long time, since I was a junior in high school,” he said, sitting in his office, with a picture of Butler’s Final Four banners on the wall. “In college, people would say, `You want to play basketball after this (professionally)? No, I don’t want to play basketball. When my senior year is over, I want to coach.”
We’re not talking the Hickory Huskers. Brownsburg is a school of nearly 2,300 students, which won a state championship in 2008 with Gordon Hayward, now of the Utah Jazz and also the 2010 Butler star who was on the back end of a good many Nored assists. Hayward’s father is one of Nored’s assistants.
The great circle of basketball life.
“There are guys that come here wanting to be coaches,” Butler coach Brad Stevens said over the phone. “And Ronald was one of them.”
How are things going? Challenging.
The Bulldogs are 4-9, trying to break a slump of three consecutive losing seasons. Ask Nored what has been hardest and the answer is immediate: “Teaching these kids how to win.”
Nored also has been insisting on the Butler Way, which drew such acclaim as the upstarts barnstormed through a couple of Marches. Accountability, academics, the right attitude. All which has made Stevens such a hot … [For more on Ronald Nored brings Butler way to high school team, click here.]
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