Basketball has been a significant part of Rick Ray’s life, and for forty years, the Two Harbors junior varsity girls basketball coach has been just as significant to the program, the players he mentors, and the local community.
“Who would have thought?” said Ray of his coaching tenure. “I said okay I’ll do it for a year and now here I am.”
Rick Ray first said yes to coaching forty-three years ago, starting with two years leading 7th and 8th grade basketball, followed by a season coaching 5th grade boys. When his former athletic director and football coach, Chuck Halsted, approached him about coaching the junior varsity girls team, Ray initially declined. However, after some gentle persuasion, he accepted the role— and now, decades later, he wouldn’t have it any other way.
The journey wasn’t without its challenges. After his wife passed away from cancer, Ray was ready to step away from coaching. It was his oldest daughter, then a sophomore, who convinced him to stay in the game.
“In my mind, I was going to give up coaching and she told me she thought that was a mistake,” he said. “I needed to stay in coaching because my kids were coming up.”
At the time, Ray’s youngest daughter was just six, and his middle daughter was in 8th grade. By deciding to continue coaching, he spent the next fourteen years with at least one of his kids involved in the program.
“I’m glad she had that vision for me to stay with it. That was huge,” said Ray. “I got to enjoy my kids. And the kids that I was coaching at the time helped me get through. They helped me deal with it. They helped my kids deal with it. It was kind of like one big family.”
That’s one thing that hasn’t changed in all his years of coaching. “I know you are coaching a bunch of kids, but they’re almost like daughters,” Ray explained. “It’s like having twenty-five or thirty daughters.”
Over the years, Ray has built countless friendships with his players—many of whom he now connects with on Facebook—and he remains grateful for the inspiration and camaraderie of the people he’s worked with. At one point, he teamed up with Scott Ross, now the Two Harbors High School Athletic Director, and Julie Benson, who also served as the school principal. The trio coached together for sixteen years.
“It’s the friendships I’ve made with coaches over the years. I’ve had lifetime friendships with coaches and officials.”
A former player was recently inducted into the Two Harbors Athletic Hall of Fame. Though unable to attend the ceremony, Kylie Wainer made a special trip to watch the Lady Agates girls basketball game against Deer River on January 3rd—a game the Agates won 43-38.
Wainer earned 13 varsity letters while attending Two Harbors high school, excelling in both swimming, track, and basketball, and received All-Conference honors in multiple sports. She continued her basketball career on a scholarship at Morningside College, where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree before pursuing a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree. Today, she serves as an Emergency Medicine physician in the Florida Air National Guard.
“It was really nice to see her,” said Ray. “I hadn’t seen her since she graduated in ’97. Scott, Julie, and I coached her. It was fun memories of years past.”
These days, Ray finds himself coaching the daughters of former players. “The second wave is coming through,” he laughed. “I hope to be out before the third one.”
Originally planning for this season to be his last, Ray is now considering one more year on the sidelines. While he hasn’t made a firm commitment, he admitted, “Once you coach, it gets in your blood.”
“Preseason I told my family I thought this was it but now that we’re into it,” he said, “I think my plan is to maybe go one more. It’s a very rewarding experience. I just like watching the kids develop and become better as a season progresses and as their careers progress through the years.”
Ray noted the noticeable growth in players who join as seventh graders, often with limited skills. He takes pride in working with them and seeing how much they improve by the time they reach eighth grade.
“It’s nice to see the improvement,” he said. “Especially kids that you don’t expect are going to be great basketball players.”
Over the years, Ray has witnessed many changes in the game, most notably the increased dedication players now show to the sport. In the past, offseason opportunities to work with players were limited, but that has changed, allowing for extra practice and significant skill development.
“Now there is a window of opportunity in June and July to work with your kids and we play a lot more games now than we used to,” the coach said.
The addition of the state-of-the-art weight room at Two Harbors School has also made a significant impact, providing student-athletes with the opportunity to build strength both during and outside of the season.
“Tom Nelson has a great program with the football program,” Ray said, of the opportunity available for all students. “The girls can go in there and he’ll help them along with that stuff, too. Things of that nature have changed a lot.”
With the extra time dedicated to building skills and strength, along with the demands of traveling to distant schools and keeping up with homework, these student-athletes have become adept at managing their time. According to Ray, top athletes often have top GPAs.
Another shift has been a shortage of players. For the first time in Ray’s memory, the varsity squad didn’t have any seniors last year. Many seventh graders are now being called up to the varsity court.
“It’s hard to get kids to commit as much as they used to,” said the coach. “I think they have so many opportunities to do other things.”
Ray acknowledged that last year’s team didn’t secure many wins, saying, “We were very young, and we took our lumps. But now this year, that’s paying off.” After starting the season 1-2, the team is currently riding a six-game winning streak.
“I always tell them that by the time Christmastime comes and early January we are a completely different team than we are at the start of the season. And that’s how it is right now,” Ray said. “The improvement compared now to day one is just night and day. And they just keep getting better in the season. Most of the time that’s how it is.”
Ray believes the success of the Two Harbors volleyball team this fall has given the basketball team some momentum, as many of the girls play both sports.
Before games, Ray keeps his pre-game talks simple, focusing on the essentials. “I tell them the big thing is they control how they play. Nobody controls how they play other than them, each individual. They got to go out there and give it all they got. There’s no guarantee that they will get to play tomorrow,” he said.
Ray has seen many injuries that have ended careers, including one that sidelined his daughter so severely that he didn’t believe she would return to the court. However, after her recovery, she went on to score over 1,000 points in her basketball career, something Ray takes great pride in.
Ray also takes pride in the fact that, in all his years of coaching, he has never been called for a technical foul. He feels he has no right to yell at a referee when he doesn’t believe he could be a better one himself. It requires being quick with the whistle, something Ray told me is hard enough to do in practice.
Though he was more competitive in his earlier years, Ray believes he has gained more maturity as he’s grown older. “I was more into winning,” he said. “I still have that to a point, but I don’t take it home with me. I’ve always coached with the philosophy of having fun. Go out there and play basketball and have fun.”
Congratulations to Coach Rick Ray for his forty years (plus three) as a basketball coach for Two Harbors High School. Here’s hoping for (at least) one more.
