Question And Answer With New Dexter Coach, Jason Rushton
Dexter High School has a new basketball coach. Jason Rushton has taken over the coaching duties and looks to guide the Dreadnaughts into an exciting future. Coach Rushton spent 5 years as the JV coach at Birmingham Seaholm and another…
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Continue ReadingDexter High School has a new basketball coach. Jason Rushton has taken over the coaching duties and looks to guide the Dreadnaughts into an exciting future. Coach Rushton spent 5 years as the JV coach at Birmingham Seaholm and another 5 years leading the Ann Arbor Pioneer JV team. He has spent the last 2 seasons at Saline as a varsity assistant. The hire is a big one for Dexter, as Coach Rushton is considered one of the top young basketball minds in the area. Coach Rushton comes with an impeccable reputation and a ton of respect in the local basketball community. I caught up with Coach Rushton to talk about him as a coach, the Dexter players, and more.
Question:
What 1 word would describe you as a coach? Why?
Coach Rushton:
Passionate. Why? Because I know what kind of impact a coach can have in a young man’s life. We want the best for the student athletes at Dexter – and we want the parents, the students, the staff, and the community to all be a part of it.
Question:
What will be a a Coach Rushton team look like?
Coach Rushton:
I know what I want it to look like, but we’ll see what it really looks like next March. We’ll have some growing pains, I’m sure, but it’s a growth process and the key is that we attack each day with the right mindset to get the most out of it and get better. It starts with building a clear vision that creates buy in – a buy in to commitment, sacrifice and unselfishness. Through a lot of hard work and living our core values, we will create a positive culture that everyone will want to be a part of.
Question:
What excites you most about coaching at Dexter?
Coach Rushton:
What excites me the most is the excitement that the players, parents, staff and administration have shown over the past couple of weeks. It’s easy for me to be excited to get to work when the people around you show as much support as I have received…not just from the Dexter community, but the fellow coaching community as well. And obviously, the kids. They’re ready and willing to get to work and do what it takes to become great.
Question:
What are your goals for next season with Dexter?
Coach Rushton:
Our goal is simple. It’s working every day to achieve our vision: to be the toughest team in Michigan that nobody wants to play. When we get there, that’s because we did it the right way. That’s respect. And we plan on earning that. If we do that, then the other goals we establish as a team will all fall into place.
Question:
What do you think you can accomplish lomg term with Dexter?
Coach Rushton:
Long term, we obviously want to win – and win a lot. We want to transform from good to great. It’s so easy to settle and be a good program. We don’t ever want to settle. We’ll never reach our potential as a program and achieve 100% of the things we want in life if we settle for anything less than 100% effort and commitment.
Question:
Who are a few players that you’re looking forward to coaching next season?
Coach Rushton:
We’re excited to coach all the kids that want to be a part of our program. It starts with our seniors – and we feel like we have a strong group of leaders. It’s their program, they’re responsible for living our core values and creating the culture. What they decide to do and how they lead will be their legacy. Be phenomenal or be forgotten. This group, I can tell, wants to be phenomenal. Marco Lucchesi, Ryan Trinkle, Bobby Pnacek, Kellen Porter are soon to be seniors who have shown their commitment and leadership in the gym early on. We have some baseball and football guys that will fit right in to what we are doing such as junior to be Collin Parachek and senior to be Antwan Ficklen. Both are incredible athletes and studs on the football field, so I am excited to have them bring their physicality and mental toughness to our gym. We have some great up and comers from our JV last year as well – Ben VanHise, Aidan Dexter and Cal Bavineau are just a few of them that have shown a lot of promise to what we have coming up in our program.
Question:
What’s up next for Dexter basketball?
Coach Rushton:
Up next for us is our growth process. We’re in the weight room, and in the gym developing our strength and our game and then we’re right into our June schedule where we’ll play a lot of basketball as a team. Just how iron sharpens iron, it’s about us becoming the best players we can which will translate to our team success in the winter. And that’s what we’re most looking forward to.