Reule, Quakers look to build on success

One of nation's top assistants to lead men's program

Scott Reule

Over the past eight years Scott Reule was one of the nation's top NCAA Division III assistant coaches. When the 2005-06 season tips off, he will begin the process of establishing himself as one of the country's best young head coaches as he takes over the reins of the Wilmington College men's basketball team.

"I am very excited," said Reule, an assistant with the WC men's team for four years before helping the Lady Quakers win a national championship during his four-year tenure as the top assistant for head coach Jerry Scheve. "This is the place I want to be. This is the place I went to college, where I learned that the things that make it nice are the people, the administration, staff members, the kids. With that in mind, this is the place I love, the place I want to be."

Reule, whose coaching and recruiting talents are beyond dispute, is looking to bring stability to a program that has had four head coaches the past four years. An advocate of a high-energy style of play, he promises to bring up-tempo basketball to the men's team. He added that some phases of the Quakers' play this year will remind WC fans of what they saw during last year¹s 10-16 renaissance season. While an advocate of change when needed, Reule is not a proponent of trying to fix what isn't broken.

"We're going to do some things differently this season, but not everything," Reule said. "Coming into the program, one thing I wanted to do was keep some of the positives from last year constant. I thought they had a lot of success with what they did on defense. They were very successful with some of the things they did offensively. We will try to build on those successes."

Since accepting the head coaching job at WC, Reule has fielded fewer questions about his coaching style than queries about his coaching change — more specifically, can a coach successfully make the transition from women's to men's basketball?

I hear that a lot. But I believe that coaching is coaching people," Reule said. "You've got to learn to deal with people and their personalities. If you listen to all of the great coaches, they will tell you it's not so much the X's and O's, it's getting your kids to believe in what you're doing. Going from women to men is just learning to deal with a different person and getting them to believe, be happy and be confident. If you can do that, good things will happen."

For Reule, coaching at a small college inspires big ambitions that extend beyond the basketball court.

"I want to be able to win in three different ways," Reule said. "I want them to win as people, to develop and become more of an adult, more of an individual. I want them to win in the classroom. Everybody is here for a degree, which is going to make a huge difference for them later in life. And finally, they need to learn how to win on the basketball floor, to have success and feel like they've accomplished goals that they haven't been able to in the past. If our kids win in those three ways, then when they leave this basketball program, I think success has been accomplished, no matter what the record reads."