New Seahawks hoop coach stresses confidence

He’s inherited a team that’s lost its top three playmakers, two to graduation and one via a transfer to a private school basketball factory, but Manny Bloom has seen it all before.

So this summer he’s busy laying the groundwork as the new Seahawk basketball coach to find the type of success here he’s made happen before, transforming a squad full of young, untested talent into contenders.

“Let’s not talk afterwards about the shot that went up,” said Bloom, who started on the job June 21. “Let’s talk about your confidence in yourself, in each other and the fact that if you have more confidence in this person they’ll probably have more confidence in themselves too.

“You still have enough talent here to win a lot of basketball games and compete with teams that may be better than you,” he said.

Bloom, 32, succeeds Fred Drake, who was not offered a chance to coach a fourth season after three winning seasons at Franklin County, during which he tallied a 61-25 record, and earned a Final Four berth in Lakeland.

Now settled in to a rental home in Apalachicola with his wife, Elizabeth, 3-year-old son Xachary, and 2-year-old daughter Emily, Bloom has been busy, setting up his office adjacent to the gym, coaching some scrimmages in Panama City and even shooting a little hoops with players, both current and former, at the old Apalachicola High School gym.

Other than three seniors who have been steady showing up this summer – Dalin Modican,

Adam Joseph and D’Andre Robinson – Bloom hasn’t seen enough yet to form an opinion of next year’s squad, so he’s staying away from forecasting the 2010-11 hoop season.

“I think it’s too hard to tell based on wins and losses,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve met all the kids, and only about half of them do I have a good feel for.

“We’ll play everyone and everybody that will play us, that’s what makes you better,” said the coach. “I know it’s important to have senior leadership, especially with a coaching change. Some had played for their third coach.”

A native of Tucson, Arizona who grew up in Pennsylvania, Bloom burst into the coaching ranks early, right after graduating from Florida Atlantic University in 2000 with a degree in education.

In his senior year in college he worked as head freshman and assistant varsity basketball coach at Boca Raton High School in Palm Beach County, and then, at age 23, in only his third season there, took over as head coach of the Class 6A program.

In 2002-03, his first year as coach, the team practiced outside in  Florida, and played only road games, as the gym had been torn down. “I took over terrible program  and we went 6-15, “ he said. “We were doing enough positive things academically with the program.

In 2003-04 the team went 14-14, and then 18-7 in each of the next two years. In Bloom’s sixth year, 2007-08, Boca Raton went 20-7 as three former starters on the ninth grade team had developed to the point where they all earned full Division I basketball scholarships, to Samford University, Georgia Southern and American University, and a fourth player went to Div. II St. Edwards.

Bloom then moved on to Greensboro, NC, to Northwest Guilford High School and took over a team that averaged seven wins a season. In his first year, the squad went 12-15 and made the state playoffs, with four freshmen. It was a rebuilding year,” said Bloom. “The only senior that started got a basketball scholarship to NAIA Montreat.”

Last year, Bloom’s team went 14-15, and won the first league championship in 22 years at the school, and did it with five sophomores and two seniors. But Bloom wasn’t entirely happy in the upscale school, and felt the stress of some parents, making unreasonable demands, was too much.

“ We won a conference champ and I didn’t enjoy one second of it. I didn’t feel that satisfaction,” he said. “It was a decision for me, do I take a year off” Do I find where I’m going to be happy?

“We did it because we love whatever sport we coach, and to me it’s better for me to feel something good. This is great for me to help some kids who actually need and appreciate the help.”

Bloom searched around for some private schools, and got some offers, but he was most impressed by the effort made by Principal George Oehlert and others to bring him here.

“This is as close to private as you get, one school, one county,” he said. “This school did such a great job of recruiting, of making sure I got here, and I enjoyed my time as I got here. Everything kind of fell into place and I’m happy to be here.

“I got kids who wonder why anybody would want to move here,” Bloom said. “I’m trying to get them to understand the positives.”

Bloom has done a free basketball clinic at Project Impact, and now has two more sessions of the world-famous 5 Star Basketball Camp to coach at. He’ll be coaching at the University of South Florida next week, and then he’ll be coaching in England the second week of August.

The 5 Star Program has given him a chance to coach against some greats as Tyreke Evans (Sacramento Kings, NBA Rookie of the Year), Ray Shipmen (University of Florida), Brandon Knight (a Kentucky Signee) and many more.

After that, school will start, and he’ll be teaching high school phys ed, as he readies for the season, working closely with new athletic director and football coach Josh Wright, although he won’t be an assistant gridiron coach.

“We're going to share more athletes,” Bloom said. “When it’s football time, it’s football first. I’m going to end up helping out at games.

“But when you’re here it’s all basketball, and when you’re with football I expect it to be all football,” he said.

Plus there’s a new website, www.seahawkathletics.com, that has just debuted and both Bloom and Wright expect to step up the presence of the program and its outreach this year.

And academics will be a major part of that.

“Give an image of what you want to be, go into class with a positive attitude,” Bloom said. “Give them the impression that you want to work, and in the end you are going to be a better person for it.”