Father knows best: Bloom-Carroll's Davis finding the right mix coaching his son, Carson
CARROLL — Bloom-Carroll’s Ryan Davis is a no-nonsense type of coach. He demands a lot from his players and understands there are no shortcuts to success.
It is the reason he was a tremendous high school and college player, and that mental toughness and attitude have led him to have a fabulous high school coaching career.
However, the last two seasons have been uncharted waters for Davis because he is now coaching his son, Carson, who is a sophomore on the Bulldogs’ varsity basketball team.
Like any father-son coaching duo, Davis tends to be harder on his son in practices and games, maybe too hard at times, but it comes with the territory.
“(Carson) gets his butt ripped 90 times more than anyone else and 90 times harder than anyone else,” Davis said “I know he loves basketball and if you want to get something out of it, there are very important things you have to understand, and that is all great players are the hardest workers on the team and great players worry about doing all the little things.
“I’ve talked to him since he was little about that and the fact that he might end up with an opportunity, but you can’t let it slip away because you never learned to work hard and conduct yourself the right way on and off the court. Those things are way more important. Seeing him succeed is neat, but I am never one to be satisfied. There will be a time to reflect and enjoy that later but right now my time is to be a basketball coach. There are 11 other guys that I am trying to make as good as they can be.”
More: Davis takes over as Bloom-Carroll’s new boys basketball coach
All Carson ever wanted to do was play for his dad
When he could walk, Carson was around the game, going to his dad’s practices and sitting on the bench when he was little. He idolized the players his dad coached when he was sitting on the varsity bench as a water boy with stars in his eyes.
He would watch his dad closely, as well as the mannerisms of the players he idolized. He dreamed of the day he would get to play for his father, even though he knew he was tough and demanding of his players.
It didn’t matter. Carson fell in love with the game. He would lay in bed at night, visualizing plays his father drew up and the moves the players would make. He knew his time was coming,
“When I was little, I had a little tyke’s rim and I have always been around the game, and once I got old enough, I was on the bench, watching my dad’s team and always cheering for his teams,” Carson said. “I watched everything he did and how his players played, and I wanted to be like them when I got older. I remember being at his practices as a 6 year old just being in awe of some of the good players he had at Chesapeake. It was kind of inspirational to me, but at the same time, I knew I wanted to be like my dad. He had so many accolades as a player and coach.”
Davis has some impressive credentials. During his 15 seasons at Chesapeake, he compiled a 231-118 record and his teams won 20 or more games five times. He led Chesapeake to the 2010 state semifinals and was named Division III state Coach of the Year in 2020 after leading the Panthers to a 20-4 record.
Davis had previous coaching jobs at Jeffersonville (Indiana), Iroquois (Kentucky), Peebles, North Vermillion (Indiana) and Graceland Christian (Indiana). Overall, Davis had 322 career wins before taking over at Bloom-Carroll last season.
Davis is a 1991 graduate of Alexander High School, which is in southern Ohio. He was an outstanding player in college and helped lead Kentucky Christian University to a National Christian College Athletic Association National Championship in 1995-96. As a senior, he won the Pete Maravich Award as the National Player of the Year.
Balancing the pitfalls of coaching your kid
There is certainly a balancing act when it comes to coaching your son. You can’t show favoritism, but at the same time, if your son deserves to play, you can’t take that away from him, either. That’s not fair to him.
Being the type of coach that Davis is, he knew he had to tread lightly, especially when Carson was younger.
“Carson has always been around the game, and I’ve always made sure he was around it, but I never let him be too involved in it,” Davis said. “I didn’t let him run out with the team for warmups or anything like that, and when we cut down nets after winning a championship, I didn’t let him be involved with that. It wasn’t his time to do that. I told him he could do that when he earns it himself.
As Carson was growing up and forging his path, Davis made sure to stay out of the way and let Carson’s coaches coach him. He knew he would more than likely get that opportunity when he reached high school.
“Maybe I should have been a little more involved, but we both knew four years dealing with me would be tough because I am demanding, and I didn’t want to burn that out before he got the opportunity to play for me," Davis said. "I’m a dad first, and I enjoy coaching, but I don’t want this to define me as a person. It has been a great experience coaching Carson, but it is also tough because I have never had to do it before.”
Carson, the Bulldogs’ leading scorer at 16 points per game and having scored a a career-high 30 points earlier this season, knew what he was getting into, but like most coaches’ sons, he understands he is going to be held to a higher standard.
“I’ve always had aspirations of playing for my dad,” Carson said. “I knew he could be tough on his players, but I knew it was for the right reasons. I know I am held to a higher standard, but it’s not just because I’m his son. He knows what I want to do with basketball and what level I want to get to, which is the main reason he pushes me so hard.
“I know when he is yelling at me, it’s not personal. I listen to what he has to say, and not always the tone in which he is saying it, and try to learn from it. He has this rule where we don’t talk about basketball on the ride home, whether it is practices or games. At home, I like to talk to him about basketball and see what he thinks about stuff because he has so much knowledge about the game. For me, it has been an honor to finally get the chance to play for him. Like a lot of coaches, he takes a lot of crap, but he does a great job at what he does, and I love him.”
Tom Wilson is a sports reporter for the Lancaster Eagle-Gazette. Contact him at 740-689-5150 or via email at twilson@gannett.com for comments or story tips. Follow him on Twitter @twil2323.
This article originally appeared on Lancaster Eagle-Gazette: Father knows best: B-C's Davis finding the right mix coaching his son
