Telegraph Staff Writer
Basketball — especially at the high school level — should be fun. Fun for the players. Fun for the fans.
That’s what Matt Snowberger believes and what he wants the Keystone Heights High School boys basketball to become. Snowberger, a 2009 KHHS graduate, is in his first year as the program’s head coach. His plans are for this season to look a lot different than people are used to. The Indians won’t fully embrace what’s known as the Grinell System, but they will adopt many of its concepts. The system is known for being up tempo, with teams playing constant pressure defense, taking quick shots (and a lot of them) and substituting players often.
“Kids want to shoot the ball. They want to run. They want to have fun playing the game,” Snowberger said. “I think I’m going to have a better chance over the long haul if groups of kids are buying in because they’re having fun.”
Snowberger has an eye on playing a style that’s enticing to fans. He wants to fill more seats in the KHHS gym.
“We might go 0-28,” Snowberger said, “but nobody’s ever going to walk out of that gym and say, ‘That was a boring game.’”
Keystone has had only two winning seasons the past 22 years, which led Snowberger to say, “If worst comes to worst, it’s a bad year in Keystone Heights basketball. We’ve got plenty of those on the books.”
Returning to coach his alma mater is like a Disney movie moment come true, Snowberger said, though it’s not a moment he envisioned.
Born to hoop it up
Snowberger seemed destined to play basketball. Yeah, he’s 6-9, but he was also following in the footsteps of his mother, Ann, who played for KHHS.
“I grew up with a ball in my hands,” Snowberger said. “I played in the YBA program we have here.”
After averaging 8.7 points, nine rebounds and 5.9 blocks per game his senior season at KHHS, Snowberger received the opportunity to play at Methodist University, a Division III school in Fayetteville, North Carolina. He described his career as “relatively uneventful,” but added that he “had a great time.”
“We were real bad,” Snowberger said. “My college teams were rough, but it was fun.”
If there’s one thing Snowberger can say to high school players who have the opportunity to play in college, it’s that more is expected of players than simply suiting up and enjoying themselves.
“There’s no college administrator who’s hoping you have a good time when you go put on the jersey and hit the court,” Snowberger said. “There’s no college coach who sees you dribble the ball off your foot and is OK with it. There’s not that casual nature.”
Snowberger said “all that cool-guy college stuff that kids think is going to happen” doesn’t when you play at a lower-level school like he did.
“There aren’t any cameras in D-III,” he said. “I remember getting excited once because my name was on the ESPN scrawl because we played one D-I team.”
After graduating from Methodist with a degree in Journalism, Snowberger joined the Army.
“The Army was awesome. I loved it to death,” Snowberger said.
When he got out of the Army, Snowberger admitted he was “a little lost.” He wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his life. He was already in Colorado, so he continued to live there, working some odd jobs before he returned to Florida and got a job with Two-Fold Water Engineering.
He ended up helping coach the North Florida Lakers AAU basketball team, which was composed mostly of Keystone kids. He was involved again in the sport he grew up playing.
Eventually, he learned of the open varsity coaching position at his alma mater, so he became a part of the KHHS family, getting certified to teach English and ESE.
“I had no issue working at Two-Fold, but I wasn’t in love with wastewater,” Snowberger said.
Snowberger said he loves being in the classroom. As for coaching, he said he was surprised to find that he’s relied upon his Army experiences.
“As a squad leader, you’re leading 15 smelly dudes in exercises. It’s not that different,” Snowberger said, adding, “I’ve been in charge of war heroes. I’m not too worried about being able to handle a group of 16-year-olds.”
A brighter future?
Keystone went 28-6 and advanced to the state semifinals in 1998-99. Since then, the Indians have had only four seasons in which they’ve won more than 10 games. Their best season in the last 22 years was 13-11 in 2006-07.
Snoweberger said things are going to change.
“The days where all those schools are going to look at the schedule, see Keystone Heights and get excited about playing us in the district tournament are over,” he said.
Snowberger said he doesn’t see any reason why the Indians shouldn’t be competitive in this area of the state. He wants the program to get to a point where he has to drive a long way to find an opponent that Keystone simply can’t be competitive against.
“We’ve got the resources,” Snowberger said. “We’ve got the kids. We have the pieces.”
Keystone’s sophomore class is deep, Snowberger said, adding that the program has two players who can be generational-type players, plus another two who’ve got a chance to be that good as well.
“Whoever walked into this job was falling into a gold mine,” Snowberger said.
Snowberger said he doesn’t mean any disrespect to the coaches before him, but things can’t continue as they have year after year. For example, the days of requiring the team to make a certain number of passes before attempting a shot are over. Snowberger said a lot of high school coaches rely upon a patient, Princeton-style offene, thinking that a multiple number of passes will eventually lead to “this magical, backdoor cut that somebody saw in ‘Hoosiers.’”
“All that stuff is beautiful, but high school players are horrific passers,” Snowberger said, adding, “We’re doing things very differently. You have to prepare for us differently than you prepare for other schools, or you better be so much more talented than us that there was no hope (for us) anyway.”
In looking at different high school programs in the area, Snowberger said their shooting percentages are all about the same regardless of what style they play. If that’s the case, why not shake things up at Keystone and create a little excitement?
“You get a lot of advice when you get this gig,” Snowberger said. “People I know, people I don’t know, coming out of the woodwork. A lot of advice. A lot of them think I’m nuts. All of my parents are going to think I’m nuts. Some of my kids think I’m a little nuts doing things this way.”
Obviously, Snowberger wants to win every game, but he also knows that the reality is Keystone will lose games. Win or lose, he wants the players to have fun and for the crowd to be entertained.
Snowberger describes games as dramas played out on a court. He believes the community has an interesting story to watch unfold this season.
“It’s the plucky guys who are trying something new and doing their darndest, scrapping every game,” Snowberger said.
