Emotional win a crowning moment for young program

By Rob Miech

Tuesday, April 7, 2009 | 2:10 a.m.

SOMEWHERE OVER KANSAS – Brushing his teeth Sunday morning in his hotel room in Rockville, Md., Mike Peck first thought of his parents who were killed in a car accident in Michigan in 1992.

The coach of the Findlay College Prep basketball team is not sentimental or emotional. He does not do drama, and he doesn’t want players who engage in petty bickering or gossip, or get easily sidetracked.

That clouds judgment, focusing on goals and being successful.

So it surprised him when he brushed his teeth and thought about Ken and Yong Peck, the parents who were taken from him way too early.

“If you’ve got any pull up there,” Mike Peck thought as he glanced at the ceiling, “help us out now.”

Twenty minutes before his 3 p.m. ESPN RISE National High School Invitational championship game against Oak Hill, Peck again thought of his late parents.

As he always does, he softly paced his locker room solo. He gathered his thoughts and pondered his pre-game words to his players in the tiny room at Georgetown Prep.

Again, he glanced at the white ceiling and spoke to his parents.

“The funny thing about all this,” Peck said in a whisper, “is that God already knows what’s going to happen. It’s already been decided. He knows what the result is. That’s amazing.”

He slightly chuckled.

“I just hope we’re on the good end of it.”

Up, up and away

Peck, 38, flew home Monday from Baltimore-Washington International Airport with his wife, Teri, their two children, a few close friends and most of his players.

In between the first and second rows of Southwest Flight 356, up in the overhead storage, the silver championship trophy lay wedged between two black pieces of luggage.

At 38,000 feet, he strolled back to seat 21D halfway through the flight to talk about the 33-0 season, the program’s first title in its third season of existence, his 65-1 record as the Pilots’ boss and the future.

When the final buzzer Sunday capped a 74-66 victory over Oak Hill, Peck gushed in the arms of star guard Avery Bradley, his brother-in-law and assistant coach Todd Simon.

It was the third time Teri Peck saw her husband cry, after his parents’ deaths and the birth of their daughter, Madi.

“It was just a little bit of shock that we had actually accomplished it, that it actually happened,” Peck said. “To actually have that happen, it’s like people who talk about winning the lottery or winning a huge bet, something that’s more or less a dream.

“It’s surreal. It’s numbing. It’s very, very emotional. All that time you spent with the guys … you know what they’ve put into it, and what you’ve put into it and invested in it, physically and mentally.”

He paused.

“I don’t get emotional,” Peck said. “Talking about my kids, I get emotional. Talking about the death of my parents. Then, anytime it comes to the team … it’s emotional.”

A year ago, Findlay was 32-0 when it played Hargrave Military Academy for the National Prep Championship title before less than a dozen people at Fordham in the Bronx, N.Y. The Pilots lost by two points.

Sunday, an SRO Eastern-stocked crowd packed into the 1,400-capacity Hanley Center to see Findlay, No. 1 by USA Today, battle Oak Hill, 40-0 and No. 2 by the national newspaper.

“Two opposite ends of the spectrum,” Peck said. “This definitely had more of an atmosphere of the big time.”

A business trip

Cherry blossoms? What’s that, a popular band playing in an area nightclub? Monuments? Memorials?

Nevada Sen. Harry Reid even sent word to Peck that he’d like to guide him and his players on a tour of Congress and other significant sites in the nation’s capital. Peck politely declined the generous offer.

“This trip was about nothing else than three basketball games,” he said. “I don’t regret it.”

Nothing shows that more than the Findlay itinerary for the weekend, which Peck and Simon detailed and printed before the trip:

Friday, April 3: Game vs. Mountain State Academy.

Saturday, April 4: Game vs. winner of Montrose Christian/Friends Central.

Sunday, April 5: Championship game vs. ?

That’s confidence.

“If you don’t believe it then it isn’t going to happen,” Peck said. “As a head coach, if you’re ever in doubt … if the point guard is panicked and nervous, your other four guys will be panicked and nervous.

“If I’m in doubt as a head coach, if I’m not believing in them, then why would they believe in themselves?”

Peck packed three sport coats for the weekend.

“I’m here for three different games,” he said. “I told them that, all along. We were the second-seeded team. We were supposed to get to the 1-2 matchup. So let’s do it.”

A select group

Peck is in a fraternity of coaches that very likely has only one member.

Him.

Rockville (Md.) Montrose Christian and Oak Hill are two bastions of Eastern prep basketball. Veteran coaches Stu Vetter and Steve Smith, respectively, rarely lose.

That the same team beat both on consecutive days was more stunning than Findlay claiming its first national championship in its third season of existence.

What’s more, the Pilots had Montrose, the local power, down by 28 points and were up on Oak Hill by 17 early in the fourth quarter.

“That says a lot for our guys,” Peck said. “I think a lot of people thought, ‘That’s a very good team.’ Especially after we beat Montrose. Still, I think the majority of people there thought Oak Hill would win.

“That was a statement our guys made and wanted to make, and felt they needed to make.”

Outside the Pilots’ locker room before halftime, as he gathered his thoughts with Simon, Peck heard the bickering from Oak Hill’s locker a few feet away.

In particular, Lamont “Mo Mo” Jones, in vulgar terms, blasted his teammates. We got them, Peck told his players seconds later, right where we want them.

Words, however, only go so far with the Pilots, which Peck tells them all the time. Don’t talk about what you can do or what you’re going to do or what you should do or how good you are.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “Anyone can do that. (You) have to go out and show them and prove to them. I think that’s what our guys did.”

Getting popular

When the Findlay contingent arrived at the Rockville Hilton, a sterling prospect and his father greeted Peck and inquired about joining the program.

Give us a call, Peck said, and we’ll further explore the possibility.

A year ago, Peck and Simon responded to each and every such inquiry. They were sporadic. Now, in phone calls and e-mails, they hear from six to eight prospects a day. They can’t respond to every one.

Thursday, a 6-foot-9 forward is visiting the program, which is affiliated with the prestigious Henderson International School.

“We’ll see if it’s a match, socially, personality- and player-wise,” Peck said. “If it’s a fit, we’ll move. If not, we’ll move on.”

Tristan Thompson and Cory Joseph, the juniors who will be the cogs of next season’s team, left Baltimore for their homes in the Toronto area. D.J. Richardson bolted for Chicago.

It’s spring break at school, so most of the players will relax with family and old friends. Bradley had a Monday night flight home to Tacoma, Wash. Godwin Okonji plans to play in a tournament in Denver.

Program founder Cliff Findlay, whose foundation supports the program to the tune of more than $500,000 a year, had hoped it would become self-sufficient after five years.

With two to go on that time frame, a national title – and the increased sponsorship deals it should attract – will help that quest.

“I know this,” Peck said, “it definitely helps take a big chunk out of that financial responsibility.”

Carlos Lopez, the center who will play at UNLV next fall, cradled the silver trophy onto the flight. Okonji held it like a crowned jewel as he walked to the baggage area at McCarran International.

“It’s a physical thing and what it represents is important,” Peck said. “But the memories and the guys represent and create more of a feeling for me, emotionally, than the hardware.”