When Ben O’Connor pressed pause on a successful high school basketball coaching career eight years ago, he was in his 30s and his hair was fully brown.
Not so much these days.
“Raising a family sort of sped up the gray hair,” O’Connor said. “It’s actually white in some areas, too.”
Gray? Yes. White? Sure. But O’Connor’s new team has also been red — as in red-hot — in O’Connor’s return to the bench this season.
O’Connor, 47, has guided West Allegheny to a 7-0 start. The Indians are one of only two unbeaten teams in WPIAL Class 5A, with Shaler (7-0) being the other. All of West Allegheny’s wins have come by double digits with the average margin of victory being 24 points.
“It’s been really nice,” said senior guard Brady Miller, one of four returning starters from last season’s team that went 8-14. “Coach has changed everyone’s mentality. Everyone plays really hard for him. You can see why he’s had so much success in the past.”
In his previous high school coaching life, O’Connor compiled a 195-148 record in 14 seasons. O’Connor began his coaching career at his alma mater in 1999, guiding a Keystone Oaks team that had gone 0-22 the season before he arrived to three playoff berths in four seasons. After spending a few seasons as an assistant at Westminster College, O’Connor coached at Fox Chapel for four seasons — he led the Foxes to the WPIAL Class 4A semifinals in 2007 — and at Bethel Park for six. Overall, he’s guided teams to the postseason 10 times.
But after the 2014-15 season, O’Connor decided to put down the clipboard and focus on being a dad for his three children, then ages 4, 5 and 7.
“To be honest, I didn’t know anything other than sports,” said O’Connor, a guidance counselor at Fox Chapel High School. “My whole life I had played, and I got right into coaching at the age of 21. It was weird at first, but it was time for me to be a dad, a husband, a son and a friend, too. I engulfed myself in everything, with my kids, my family, and even made time to make weekend trips with my friends. I actually really enjoyed it.
“But I missed Tuesday and Friday nights. I missed the relationships with the kids and the crazy flow of the season. You don’t miss it when you’re in the middle of it, the grind. But now that I’m back in it I have a different appreciation for it, and I’m trying to embrace it all.”
O’Connor didn’t give up coaching totally, though, as he guided youth teams the previous eight years.
“It’s not nearly the same type of pressure or stress, but it at least kept me in the game,” he said.
Returning this season had to do with timing, said O’Connor, who lives with his wife, Aimee, in Oakdale. His kids are now ages 13, 14 and 16. His 14-year-old son, Donovan, is an eighth grader who plays basketball at West Allegheny Middle School.
“The opportunity presented itself,” O’Connor said. “I had a chance to talk with West A. After talking with my wife, it was like, ‘All right, I’m not getting any younger.’ But I was personally happy just being the old dad sitting in the corner of the gym watching.”
O’Connor relies on his assistants more than ever, stating “rather than being the lead singer, we try to do it as a group.” His staff consists of Dan Marshall, Justin Gasbarre and Mike Kinslow. Marshall is a longtime West Allegheny basketball and football coach, Gasbarre was an assistant under O’Connor for eight seasons previously, and Kinslow and O’Connor coached youth teams together the past few seasons.
Buy-in. That has been the key to West Allegheny’s early success, O’Connor said. While the Indians are still figuring things out, the one constant has been trusting the system and playing together.
Why the buy-in? Miller explains.
“History. And he’s a pretty imposing dude. I wouldn’t talk back to him,” Miller said with a laugh.
At 6 feet 8, O’Connor is one of the tallest coaches in the WPIAL.
West Allegheny has answered the bell time after time this season, a huge reason being the play of Brandon Bell, a 6-foot-4 senior guard-forward and the team’s leading scorer at 17.1 points per game. Bell poured in a season-high 30 points in a 46-33 win against Central Valley on Dec. 5 and had a double-double with 16 points and 12 rebounds in Tuesday’s 50-33 win against Trinity.
“Brandon is very talented,” O’Connor said. “He has a unique set of skills with having a forward’s body and having the ability to step out and shoot the 3. He has great hands, great feet. But what makes Brandon special is he has bought in completely to defending and doing the little things. Brandon’s taken charges, he’s hedging screens, he’s doing the little things that could make him a really good college basketball player.”
In addition to Bell and Miller, the returning starters are senior Justin Manns and junior Ty Blatz. Seniors Leo Walsh and Wil Gubba have also started games this season. Gubba is a Marshall baseball commit who hasn’t played in a couple of seasons. Miller will play college baseball at Oklahoma. His older brother, Gavin, plays at Auburn.
Aside from the Trinity game, all of West Allegheny’s wins have come against teams from lower classifications. But the schedule will soon amp up when the Indians begin section play. Class 5A Section 4 also features Moon, Chartiers Valley, South Fayette, Mars and North Hills. West Allegheny was the only one of those teams to not finish with a winning record last season.
“I thought it was hard coaching in the old 4A whenever 4A was the highest class, coaching against Upper St. Clair and Mt. Lebanon. This is even harder,” O’Connor said. “This is the ACC of high school hoops. Good teams and good coaches. You have six teams that can all beat each other and six teams that can win the section. It will be a challenge. There will be no off nights, that’s for sure.”
O’Connor hopes to guide West Allegheny to plenty of more wins this season. And even though he said he enjoyed his time away, he’s glad he’s back.
“I didn’t realize how much I missed it until I actually got back in it.”
Brad is a sports writer at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at beverett@unionprogress.com.