SMALL TOWN KID MAKES IT BIG...is what 2007 Ansonia graduate Brad McEldowney has done as he earned a roster spot on the Dayton Flyer's basketball team as a walk-on.

By Bob Moore
Growing up you watch your favorite college basketball team play during March Madness and dream of one day donning their uniform. Running onto the court you imagine the electricity as the anticipation runs through every fiber in your body. As you exit the tunnel and hit the light of the arena the crowd goes nuts and you feel like you could jump over the moon if given the opportunity.

It’s the dream of any athlete that has swung a bat, thrown a perfect spiral or watched the perfect rotation of a basketball settle gently in the back of the net before falling gently to the floor.

Few get to live the dream. Even fewer are willing to work hard enough to have the opportunity to live it. Many have the work ethic, but don’t have the God given abilities to even compete with those who are faster, stronger and more gifted. Some who are gifted enough to compete are never given the opportunity. Few on both ends of the spectrum are too afraid to try.

Now imagine living the dream. Few from the Cross County Conference have had the chance to play or be on a team competing on the biggest stage in College athletics.

When the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament begins their second day of play on Friday, one of the Cross County Conference’s own, Brad McEldowney will be living that dream.

Brad is a 2007 grad of Ansonia high school and played as a varsity player all four years of his high school career for Tiger coach, Chad Cramer. Brad played for two CCC championship teams that earned 3 district runner-up trophies. His last game as a Tiger was on the University of Dayton arena floor to the eventual ‘07 Division IV State Champs in the Georgetown G-Men.

With 35 seconds to go in the second game of the UD Flyers Men’s basketball 2008-09 season-- Brad McEldowney, a lifetime UD basketball fan that knew no matter what, he was going to be a minimum a UD student after high school; tore off his Flyer warm-up that showed his #53 and played in his first game as a walk-on with the University Dayton Basketball Flyers.

This time he walked off the UD floor with a victory. Maybe a more accurate description is that he floated off. I’ll write more about that experience later in the article.

When you consider there are currently 331 Division I basketball program in the United States, McEldowney is in an elite class of athletes. When you add up the numbers there are less than 5000 players in the country. Boil that down from over 91,000 high schools that graduate a minimum of 2 players per year, the average high school basketball player in the US has a 2 % chance of playing at the Division I level. It is even less when you add in the international players.

“It gives me chills just thinking about it (being a Division one player) exclaimed McEldowney. “I was talking to my brother the other night and told him that it was a great feeling, but to say that I was a University of Dayton Flyer walk on means even more.”

So how does a 6’1”, 180 pound white kid from Darke County get noticed enough to walk on to a Division I basketball program? Luck? Did have connections? Was he just better than anybody else that tried out? You can answer yes to some degree on all those questions and as the story unfolds we will twelve into the details of Brad’s D1 basketball journey. The undercurrent to the story-- no matter the twists and turns was this; it was Brad McEldowney’s will to work hard to pursue a dream. In the end, it was the hard work ethic that earned him an opportunity.

Each contact made in life can make an impact and provide a difference on what may transpire years down the road. With McEldowney it happened in junior high at a basketball camp at Michigan State University where he met Eddie Day.

Day was a good friend of UD Men’s coach Brian Gregory, Michigan State’s Coach Tom Izzo and Indiana University Coach Tom Creen and Day was involved as a coach at the camp. Day was impressed with Brad’s hard work and they developed a rapport as Brad attended a few camps up through his freshman year.

Day began coming to Dayton for Brian Gregory’s basketball camps and McEldowney attended several camps through high school. Day invited Brad to attend the camp summer before his freshman year at UD as Brad was already on campus to find a job. Day even threw Brad into coaching with some of the younger campers. With Day there and with him being a counselor, he was able to play open gyms with some of the UD players. This got Brad’s foot in the door to know some of the UD players before he started college there, but more importantly, Brian Gregory (or BG as players may refer to him) got to know who Brad was and Brad became familiar to how thing were run through at UD with BG’s camp.

McEldowney’s freshman year he missed the walk on tryouts because of a back injury during an open gym at the recreation center. The back pain was so severe that he had permission from his professors to walk around the class room because he couldn’t sit still with the pain. By the time he was able to play again it was a week before the tryout and he was in no condition. “After 5 minutes of the work out I was done!” McEldowney stated emphatically.

Not only was McEldowney physically done because of the injury, but mentally he thought his dream of playing college ball at UD was done. It was time to think about being a full time student in his chosen degree of Sports Management. But like most stories in life, it all comes down to being in the right place at the right time and with the right person. The right person was London Warren, the Flyers starting point guard who Brian Gregory recently described as the heart and soul of the Flyers after their 11 seed in the Midwest Regional was announced on selection Sunday.

“This year they had walk-on tryouts and I didn’t go to them” continued McEldowoney. “I thought I was done playing ball, but three days after the tryouts I ran into London Warren in the training room. He asked me, ‘Hey, why don’t walk on or why didn’t you try out?’ I told him that I thought I was done and didn’t have a chance of playing. He told me, ‘No, we need at least one more walk on, we need the bodies! We’ve played with you before, we know you’re good enough why don’t you do it?’ I jokingly said to him, ‘You get the coach to contact me, I’ll do it.’ I woke up the next morning and I had an email from coach saying that they were interested and would you be interested in doing a work out. I shot an email back and two weeks later I was doing an individual workout with the assistant coaches and a graduate assistant.

McEldowney didn’t take the invitation lightly and went to work. For two weeks McEldowney put in a minimum of 4 hours every day, running, shooting, playing and worked on any weakness he saw in his basketball skills. He shot over 1000 shots a day and he said that really got him in shape by the time he reported to his workout.

“That was the Monday before official practice started” McEldowney continued. ”On Wednesday they text me and asked ‘What size shoe do you wear?’ On Thursday they called and asked if I could come in and talk to coach. I got there and they said ‘Welcome to the family and you start practice tomorrow!”

Since Brad was a sophomore, familiar with the basketball program and a known person with Gregory it was easy decision to insert Brad into the ‘family.’ McEldowney became a Dayton Flyer basketball player.

Another factor is that the McEldowney’s are a UD family as Brad’s older brother Bryan attended UD and that made a big impression on Brad who is nine years younger. That combined with Eddie Day’s recommendation on how hard Brad worked with a passion for UD basketball got his foot in the door for his tryout. He also gave Brad the confidence to do the tryout. As a result, Eddie Day was one of first people Brad called when he got the word that he made the team.

“The first thing the coaches told me was that they know at this point that I’m not skilled enough to take on guys that are 6 inches taller than me and 25 lbs heavier, but they do expect you to be one of the hardest worker, if not the hardest worker and that is all they really want out of you. Your skills are going to develop because you’re playing against these kinds of kids and you’re in this atmosphere. The first thing they expect is for you to work hard.”

Another factor that caught the coaches’ attention during his workout in addition to the hard work ethic was Brad’s attention to detail on the coaches every instruction. My interpretation of that statement is that they valued a player with good listening skills and the brains to execute with only having to be told once. No room or time for error with a walk-on in a Division I program. You better hit the ground running, or as you will read later in the article… you’ll get run over!

The Routine of a Division I Basketball Player
Like most college students, burning the midnight oil is routine practice to keep up with school work with spare time to hang out with friends or go to the rec. center for exercise or a pick up game. The biggest difference McEldowney noted was that all spare time is now basketball or spent with the team. Built into the structure of basketball are study times, in addition to film review, practice and other meetings.

Practices are always at the arena before a game and will alternate with the girls team between the facility off the Frerick’s Center and the Arena. For those familiar with UD, the practice facility at the Frerick’s Center is the old swimming pool before the new rec. facility was built. The old pool was filled with concrete and they put the old floor from the Arena over it.

“The practices are physical, up and down (the floor) and a lot different than a high school practice. You never have a break down in practice where you are working on shooting drills or other skills. Everything is geared toward the next game, defensive coverage, special plays or something we didn’t do well in the last game that we need to improve upon before the next game” noted McEldowney.

“The biggest change is the physicality” noted Mac. “I’m not playing against guys that are on average 3 or 4 inches taller, but 6 to 10 inches taller and they are 20 to 25 lbs heavier with most of that being muscle.”

So being 6’1” and 185 lbs practicing against the likes Chris Wright who 6’8” and nothing but muscle, it is not a matter of getting knocked around, it is only a question of when!

“The biggest part is getting over the fear factor. You know that you’re going to get hit; just go for it anyway because that is what you have to do. It hurts a lot less if you know you’re going after a loose ball and getting hit, versus being timid and being hit!”

Definitely more bumps and bruises in practice but Mac noted that the biggest difference is the training staff. “In high school you wait a couple of days and a bruise, sore ankle or knee will go away. Here you are just going too hard day in and day out for that to happen and they are available at all hours of the day for ice, whirlpool, whatever you need.”

The team has a full time trainer who is also a nutritionist. He is either on campus or at practice a half hour before and usually he is one of the last people to leave. The coaches tell the players if you’re sore, it is you own fault if you didn’t find the trainer.

Depending on the practice the nutritionist will have different combination of drinks or shakes for the players depending on the intensity of the workout. Two days before a game they will have a hard practice and weight lifting. The nutritionist will have vitamins to keep the players healthy and a shake after practice to restore energy and lost liquids. He is also responsible for getting the players stretched and ready to go for each practice. A meal is provided for scholarship players after every practice. It is usually catered and the nutritionist picks out the menu that is high in protein, usually includes pasta for energy and is low in fat.

The night before a game, the team will have a break after practice and will come back to the arena for a film. Although the film work may not pertain directly to him it does not diminish the impact of the players on the rest of the team. McEldowney states that the role of a walk-on during the game is that you are the eyes in the sky and the eyes in the back of your teammates head. “We’re talking as much as the players are talking on the floor. At half time we have about two minutes to ourselves before the coaches come in and during that time we are talking about what happened and we put in our input depending what we see.”

Your role changes as a walk-on with the number of years of experience you have. The guys ahead of him helped him and that will be expected of Brad to whoever would walk on after him.

The Line Between High School and College Basketball
The coaching staff at UD has different drills on posters going into the practice facilities, locker room or in the player’s lockers for them to work on. All this work is expected before or after practice.

“The biggest thing I look back on now is that I wished I would have listened a little bit more to my coaches and put in that extra work. It is amazing what it has done since I’ve become a player here and getting prepared for my workout to make the team with the assistant coaches.”

“Players in high school don’t realize the extra efforts players at this level put into the work they do to make a difference” emphasized Mac. “High school players go home and think I have too much homework or the play on the PS3, but if they get their homework done and work just 10 minutes on their weaknesses, they’ll be amazed how much they will improve. Nothing replaces hard work. Come into practice 10 minutes early and work on those things and if you’re working hard at it you’re going to break a sweat. In two weeks they notice a huge improvement.”

"You don’t need to wait before or after a practice," noted McEldowney. For players wanting to improve McEldowney recommends that a person make out their own workout sheet and work a minimum of 10 minutes a day on a weakness. The next best option is, “Ask your coach!” exclaimed McEldowney.

High school players will notice their first few years out of college on how much their game changed from a mental aspect. Much of that is a natural growing up process, but it also depends on the player and one such player that Brad used in his example was Kyler Booher from Newton.

“The mental aspect of the game would be the biggest difference between now and high school. If I could play in high school now with the mental aspect I have in place now, it would make a huge difference. The person I think about in high school was Kyler Booher from Newton. He was always mentally tough and his father raised him to be that way but from his freshman year he had to lead that team and he hit his maturity a lot faster than a typical high school player and I think that is what made him such a great player at such a young age.”

“At the college level you have to be mentally tough” continued Mac. “You can’t play scared against these guns because you’re going to get rocked! You’ll get thrown to the ground and get trampled up by the bulls!”

The First Time on the Arena Floor
“We were up 24 on Bethune Cookman and Dan Fox, one of the other walk on players, looked at me and said, ‘Are you ready for this?’” as McEldowney told his story of his first game.

“When the coaches started calling in the walk on players they started with Fox and Luke Hendrick. I scooted next to Kurt Huelsman and all my teammates started looking at me and smiling. Coach Gregory kind of smirked at me and turned away and said McEldowney and I got up and undid my first couple of buttons on my warm. My teammates jumped up were just ripping the warm ups off of me, throwing me towards the scorers table and throwing a towel in my face because you hand a guy a towel that you check in for. It was just a great experience because they were just as excited for me as I was. That one thing I like about this team. Out motto is ‘a band of brothers’ and it is true. We really care a lot about each other.”

“After the game I ran up the tunnel I jumped so high. I was so excited I don’t think I ever jumped so high in my life! I was so excited that when I walked into the locker room I almost fainted! I was just like ‘WOW, I can’t believe this just happened!’ My heart was pumping so hard because I was so excited.”

Conclusion
McEldowney’s major is Sports Management and with that major you must complete a minor in business. Mac dreams of being a coach and being involved with the UD basketball program fits into the career track. With the Sport Management degree he can audit classes to see what the assistant coaches look for in their breakdown of film and dig into the administration of what it takes to run a basketball program at the Division I level. So not only is he soaking up what it takes to be a player he is also sponging up everything being thrown at him from a coaching standpoint.

So as the Ansonia community and the Cross County Conference takes pride in Brad’s accomplishments in participating as a player at the Division I level; maybe this is only the beginning. As we watch the Flyers take on West Virginia, knowing that this is probably a first for a player in our conference being on the floor during March Madness, we may be witnesses only to the first step with Brad McEldowney. Maybe the lineage will continue in the coaching ranks when people will mention the likes of Tom Izzo, Brian Gregory and Brad McEldowney. It could happen. We already know the Brad has the work ethic and a knack for being in the right place at the right time.

Regardless of his future plans, we congratulate Brad and wish him and the Flyers the best of luck! GO DAYTON FLYERS!