The schedule is loaded.
Chesterton, Lake Central, Marquette, Griffith and Indianapolis Howe to start the season.
And it gets harder after Christmas.
Book it now.
Lighthouse starts 0-5.
Doesn’t matter.
Marvin Rea doesn’t care about losses, job security or building kids’ confidence.
He just wants to win when it counts. Always has.
He’s unusual that way among high school coaches.
Rea is back on the sidelines again after a two-year absence.
He replaced Lighthouse boys basketball coach Quincy Taylor at the start of the school year. His emergence as the Lions coach could have been expected.
When Rea was hired as the Regional Operations Manager for Lighthouse Schools in the summer of 2015, it seemed like just a matter of time before he was coaching the team.
Boys basketball practice starts Monday, and it feels like everything is right again.
Rea was meant to coach in Gary. He was meant to coach. Period.
Rea had an acrimonious falling out with Bowman, where he was fired during the 2014-15 season. He lobbied later in the season to get his job back.
Those days are behind him.
He has taken a conservative public approach to his new job.
“Yeah, I’m excited,” he said. “I’m taking it a day at a time.”
Underneath his understated view, the fire burns fast and hot for the coach who won two state titles at Bowman.
Circle Feb. 7 on your calendar. That’s when Bowman comes to Lighthouse to play. Rea said the school is already thinking about finding a new venue. The Lions’ gym is tiny.
By then, he figures his team will be ready to compete.
Lighthouse has a solid core already.
Jonquell Dawson, a 6-foot-8 junior, is one of the better small forwards in the area. Jaylen Williams, a 6-1 junior guard, transferred from Bowman. Javon Riley, a 6-4 power forward who averaged 16 points last year, returns.
There will be other surprises, too.
For Rea, a former star point guard at Roosevelt, the biggest relief is he’s on the bench again.
“I’m just happy to be back,” he said. “I had other opportunities to coach again, but I wanted to be in Gary in the community I grew up in.”
Rea didn’t clean house when he took over. He did the opposite.
He kept Taylor after the Lions’ former head coach agreed to be an assistant.
Kenya Stines, who coached at Lighthouse last year, also is on the staff. Stines was an assistant at Bowman under Rea.
Rea called Taylor a co-coach.
Because Rea’s job keeps him busy during the day, he knew he needed someone like Taylor to lean on for help.
“Quincy is a good guy and a good coach,” Rea said. “He could’ve walked out and said no, but he was here for the kids. I totally value his opinion.”
Rea said his biggest challenge involves changing attitudes.
He likes to use 12 players during games. Defense is paramount to success.
If the Lions play like Bowman did during its state championship runs, there won’t be many offensive sets.
It will be the same helter-skelter style of play that made Bowman, when it was on, one of a kind.
“I have to do two things,” he said. “I want these guys to believe in themselves and I want to make sure they don’t have a false sense of reality when they walk into the gym. I may not think they are as good as they think they are.”
Rea has no illusions about the schedule and about his team taking its lumps, saying, “I don’t think anyone is going to feel sorry for us.”
His attitude? Bring it on.
Yes, it’s good to have Rea back.
Twitter @MikeHuttonPT
