They said a whole lot of nice things about the longtime coach of the Saltfleet Secondary team that’s hosting this week’s provincial AAA boys basketball tournament during Sunday’s welcome banquet. Just compliment after compliment.
The man being unofficially feted admits he felt a tad uncomfortable with all the attention.
“It’s almost like when you’re dying,” Dave Ormerod laughs.
He’s not. But he is retiring. And as one of the deans of local high school hoops, he’ll be taking a whole lot of basketball history and knowledge with him.
His story goes back to the days Magic Johnson and Larry Bird were the kings of the basketball universe.
It was in the mid-1980s when he was a student at Scott Park that Ormerod and his teammates went to a pair of Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations (OFSAA) high school championships. A few years later, while he was still in university, he helped his dad coach Hill Park. Then when he graduated, he landed his first job teaching at Sir John A. Macdonald, which had no coach and no prospects for one.
“The vice-principal brought me in (and said), ‘I’ll give you a whole bunch of supply days if you will coach the basketball team,’” he says.
Still, he bounced around in those early days. Sir John A one year, Churchill the next, then back to Sir John A, where his team won its first city title in school history.
Then while playing a men’s league game, a teacher friend on his team mentioned a new school was opening in town. He should apply.
He did, he got an interview and he landed at Saltfleet in the fall of 1996. Where he took the gig as coach.
“We were terrible,” he says.
Basketball wasn’t a big deal there at the time. For four or five years, they stunk. His words. Until a six-foot-seven, 230-pound superstar named Keenan Jeppesen walked through the door of the gym for tryouts one day.
“All of a sudden, I became a good coach,” he laughs.
That helped, no question. But it wasn’t just one player. Because while Jeppesen graduated and went on to play college ball in the States, Ormerod never left. Since then — with plenty of different guys in the lineup — his teams have been to multiple provincial tournaments and won Saltfleet’s first OFSAA title in 2015.
The success hasn’t stopped. They’ve been in the past 10 city championship games and won this year’s crown, his sixth at the school. Which was one of the most exciting, he says, since it wasn’t expected. They knew they were going to be playing in OFSAA since they were hosting but earning their way in was special.
On Monday in their tournament opener, his third-seeded Storm clobbered Peterborough’s St. Peter Catholic Secondary 83-55. They now take on Richview Collegiate from Toronto at noon on Tuesday, on Saltfleet’s home court.
Hamilton’s other entry from St. Jean de Brebeuf lost 68-43 to the top-seeded side from Oakwood Collegiate in Toronto. Brebeuf now faces St. Marcellinus Catholic Secondary from Mississauga at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday at Glendale.
Games go through the day at Saltfleet and Glendale on Tuesday and Wednesday. The bronze-medal game is 6 p.m. on Wednesday and the gold-medal contest follows, both at Saltfleet.
There’s a chance to create some real magic this week. Back in November, Cathedral hosted the girls’ AAA tournament and won. Two local teams hosting and both winning on their home court? Has that even ever been done?
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
The way the tournament is set up, Ormerod and his players have at least two more games. Then he’s done.
The 55-year-old says running his final practice on Friday was weird. As was glancing up at the banners in the gym while looking for the ones from the years he coached his son, Nolan. But he’s ready.
Coaching isn’t the same as it used to be, he admits. There are so many more demands on kids’ time now that it becomes difficult to always get full turnout. It’s not that they’re not committed, they’re just pulled in so many directions.
Everybody plays rep so high school ball isn’t everything the way it once was. And the old Mountain versus City and East versus West rivalries aren’t nearly as fierce. It’s just, well, different.
So when he puts down the clipboard, it’ll be for the last time. Probably, anyway. OK, almost certainly. Most likely, for sure. Whatever. For now, he says he’s ready.
“I told my guys, next time you see me dressed up in a suit, you’ll be walking by my casket.”
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