Controversy behind him, Anthony Ross is in the right place at right time

FROM KEITH GROLLER

Talking to Anthony Ross on Monday at Moravian College was a reminder that basketball season's coming and coming fast.

The college guys start practicing this week. The high school kids still have to wait until the Friday after Thanksgiving for their first "official" practice and the first night of games is Friday Dec. 10.

Seems far off now while we're in the middle of football and the baseball postseason, but it will be here before you know it.

If you didn't see my column in the paper today, Ross is doing well. The former Dieruff High star is thrilled to be back in college basketball as a full-time assistant coach at Moravian College with veteran Jim Walker.

Wallker couldn't say enough good things about Ross on Monday while helping out at the second annual Columbus Day Lehigh Valley SportsFest Millenium Showcase.

Ross is a deep person. He gets it.

He knows that nothing in life comes easy. There are going to be struggles and obstacles to overcome. And you can pity yourself. You have to pick yourself up, stop making excuses and go out and make something positive happen.

He has done it in his own life and he did a great job helping kids with similar backgrounds overcome difficult situations at Pocono Mountain East.

I think he would have done the same at Dieruff.

I know there are a lot of people who still think he should be the head coach at Dieruff. I don't know why it didn't happen.

But things happen in life for a reason and not to get into cliches, but sometimes when one door closes, another opens and that door is the one you wanted all along anyway.

He's in the perfect situation and place for him right now where he can learn what it takes to be college basketball coach. Remember, this is what he wanted to do ultimately anyway and as he said in the column, getting an assistant coaching job in college puts him closer to that goal than had he coached at Dieruff.

Ross spoke well of the Millennium Showcase put together by Toomey Anderson in conjunction with Lehigh Valley SportsFest.

The showcase provided kids with an opportunity to make contact with college coaches and test themselves against other top players.

"This is great for the kids," Ross said. "It says a lot about Toom and how far he's come. It's a good thing for the kids here and the kids need to get with him because he has a lot of outlets for a lot of the kids. He's doing a lot of good things to help them."

Anderson may not have had the numbers of kids he wanted. He thought a lot of kids would be off from school and that wasn't the case, especially with many of the District One schools.

He is talking about moving his event to Sunday next year, so kids wouldn't have to miss school to participate.

But he still had lots of quality kids there and they benefitted from being a positive environment in which they learned a lot about the game and other aspects of the college recruiting process.

John Celestand, the former Villanova and NBA star, was an outstanding speaker and hit on all the right notes about the need to not only work hard on the court, but also to hit the books hard and do the right things in your personal life.

He genuinely seemed happy to be there, happy to be reaching out to kids. His mother is a school teacher and it's clear that he learned at a young age to reach out to others.

Celestand was so good that I would like to see him get more of an opportunity on Comcast SportsNet and on various college basketball TV outlets.

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