Ryan opts to coach again

It's funny how things work out sometimes.

John Ryan was gearing up for some long-awaited downtime. He was looking forward to taking it easy, hanging out more with his five grandchildren.

But before his "time off" from his coaching duties at Carmel Catholic even really kicked in, he is finding himself back in the saddle again.

This week, Ryan was named the new boys varsity basketball coach at Carmel, barely a month after stepping down as the girls coach at Carmel for health reasons.

"I definitely had no intention of doing this (upon resigning his post with the girls team)," said Ryan, the winningest coach in Carmel basketball history -- boys or girls. "It just kind of worked out this way."

What worked out first was Ryan's health. Actually, it checked out just fine.

At age 60, Ryan is probably in better shape than most of his peers. He jogs every day -- five miles in the summer, three miles during the school year -- and he still plays pick-up basketball regularly.

But Ryan was still worried. Both of his parents died relatively young of heart conditions. And his brother died recently after a battle with a colon condition.

Ryan then had some health issues pop up himself and he began to have concerns that he might be on the same path.

He decided that after nine years of coaching the girls, he needed to step back from coaching -- at least for one year -- so that he could get his own health in order.

Carmel then named Ben Berg, who had been an assistant under Ryan, the new head girls coach.

In the meantime, Jon Baffico announced his resignation as the boys basketball coach at Carmel. Baffico, who will still teach math at the school, had a 22-88 record in four years with the Corsairs.

Athletic director Andy Bitto had always thought that Ryan, who has an extensive background coaching boys, would make a great boys basketball coach at Carmel. But Ryan's self-imposed sidelining put Bitto into search mode.

Ironically, Bitto asked Ryan to be on the search committee.

"We actually started interviewing a bunch of candidates," Bitto said. "We had come down to three or four people, but we just couldn't come to terms with them -- either we didn't have a position for them, or the financial situation wasn't quite right. So then, we were back at ground zero -- as recently as last week."

Just as Bitto's feelings of frustration mounted, Ryan felt like he was getting a new lease on life.

In an effort to address his health concerns, he had put himself through a battery of tests. He was pleasantly surprised when they all came back normal.

Coincidentally, it was at about this same time that Bitto decided to double check with Ryan about his need for time off.

"Andy asked me about the job and I kind of felt like, 'Yeah, here I am thinking that I'm going to have a little down time, but you know what, the time might just be right,'" Ryan said. "My health turned out to be fine and this is a good opportunity for me. I've always considered myself more of a boys coach anyway."

In addition to his time coaching girls at Carmel, Ryan also coached girls for five years at Immaculate Heart of Mary. He was even once an assistant coach for the DePaul women's basketball team under Doug Bruno.

That's a total of 17 years for Ryan with girls or women's programs.

But the 36-year veteran has also spent 19 years coaching boys.

He spent the bulk of his time with the boys under his idol, longtime St. Joseph coach Gene Pingatore, whose 1999 team won the Class AA state title over Warren. Ryan also coached the boys at Immaculate Conception for one season.

Ironically, Ryan originally interviewed at Carmel 11 years ago for the boys job. But the school didn't have a job to go with it at the time. Ryan is a counselor.

"John was on our radar a long time ago for the boys job," Bitto said. "He's a really good coach. He's a good technician of the game. He's exciting and disciplined. We need to get this program back to where we want it to be and I think his style and approach will fit well."

Carmel hasn't had a winning season in boys basketball since 1991-92.

"It's going to be a challenge," Bitto said. "But the person who turns this around is going to be a hero here and I think John is going to be the person to do it."

Carmel returns two of its top players next year -- 6-foot-6 center Jack Baucus and guard Tim Sachs, as well as Ryan Kloss and Jonathan Huisel, both of whom developed nicely over the course of last season.

"We have really good kids, but that's actually part of the problem," Ryan said. "Our kids are good at school and good at their other sports and basketball kind of gets left behind.

"Our football team is good and our baseball team is good and we've got a lot of those same kids in our program. But where are they going to dedicate most of their time? Naturally, they're going to want to put the time in with the winning programs. We need to change that. We need to have that same kind of commitment from them for basketball."

And so Ryan will go from being a counselor to a salesman.

"It's going to be a sales job," he said. "We've got to sell the kids into believing that they can be a part of something special. And I really believe that's possible. We have good athletes, we just need to put it all together.

"No doubt it will be a challenge. But I like working with kids and I like to win and we're going to make that happen."