School: North Penn
Basketball
Favorite athlete: Michael Jordan
Favorite team: Philadelphia 76ers
Favorite memory competing in sports: “Our team scoring 101 points against Truman my sophomore year.”
Funniest thing that happened while competing in sports: “My first picture in the local paper had the wrong name!”
Music on iPod: Lil Wayne, Notorious, BIG AC/DC, Temptations
Future plans: “Graduate from college and get a good job”
Words to live by: “The wolf is only as strong as the pack, and the pack is only as strong as the wolf.”
One goal before turning 30: “Start a family”
One thing people don’t know about me: “I have never swallowed a pill.”
It would have been understandable if Derek Brooks had called it a career when he received word that his basketball team would be playing for a new coach this season.
After all, the North Penn senior had not been a marquee player, and it’s hardly a secret that when a new coach steps in, many prefer to go with younger players.
Quitting was never a consideration for Brooks. As a matter of fact, just the opposite was true. He embraced the hiring of Ron Hassler.
“I was actually very excited that we were going to have a new coach,” he said. “He knows what he’s doing, so I was all for whatever he had to say. He’s won a lot of games. It’s very exciting to have a coach of his caliber coaching us.
“It wasn’t like I was ticked and wouldn’t listen to the guy. I was all ears, and so were a lot of other teammates.”
It wasn’t an immediate success story for Brooks, but the senior forward listened and learned under Hassler, and he has been a key part of the Knights’ recent success.
“He never compromised his loyalty to the program during a transition year which finds the team going through many growing pains under a new coaching staff and system,” Hassler said. “Considering the amount of new concepts that he and his teammates were introduced to this year - Derek continues to work very hard and has been a great role model for younger kids in our program.
“He knows the value of teamwork and being a teammate, and those things are real important for us coming into the program. That’s the first thing we looked for – we tried to identify kids concerned about their teammates.”
Brooks is a testament to the value of patience and perseverance, and a disappointing showing in a one-point loss to Central Bucks East early in the season only served as impetus to make him work harder.
“I went 0-for-8, and I took the blame for that one on me,” he said. “I started lifting after that game, and a game or two later, I started to turn it on.”
In the championship game of the Knights’ holiday tournament, Brooks had 18 points, nine rebounds and four assists, and these days, double figure performances are commonplace.
“I struggled at the beginning of the year, but I stayed with it,” he said. “I just wanted to be a team player.
“I was never worried about scoring, and the same with the rest of the guys on the team. We wanted to win, and we wanted to be unselfish.”
Brooks has set the tone for a Knight squad that has notched some big wins in recent weeks after a rough start.
“He’s made a lot of contributions throughout the season and has emerged as one of the leaders on an inexperienced team,” Hassler said. “He’s been very patient with the program moving along.
“Kids these days are not very patient. They want immediate results and gratification, and it wasn’t really coming for him early in the season, and he was patient enough to wait it out and bide his time. He’s now starting to figure out how to utilize the program to his benefit.”
The Knights, according to Brooks, have a whole new mindset under Hassler, who has won 10 district titles and taken a team to the state championship game during his coaching tenure.
“He wants to win district championships, he wants to go to states,” Brooks said. “He’s instilled a winning (mentality), and we’re not used to that.”
Hassler’s switch from a man defense to a matchup zone has been, according to Brooks, a change that was made to order for this squad.
“Quite honestly, our team was not made up for man,” he said. “A lot of us are very lanky and lean, so a matchup zone is actually a very good defense for us. That’s probably the number one reason we’ve stayed in games this season.”
But the new defense, according to Brooks, isn’t the biggest difference under Hassler.
What is?
“The intensity level,” he said. “Things we used to accept, we’re not accepting.”
And as a result, the Knights are finding ways to win.
“We started off 4-6, but we could have very easily been 8-2., but we didn’t know how to finish games,” Brooks said. “We’re figuring out how to win.”
As a youngster growing up, Brooks played basketball, baseball, football and soccer, but by the time he was a freshman, he had dropped all of them in favor of basketball.
“My dad (Mike Brooks) was a big basketball guy, and he really got me hooked,” Derek said. “I used to love Michael Jordan, and that’s the sport I knew how to play the best.”
Brooks’ love affair with the sport has never waned, and he is passing on his passion for basketball to the youth of the community as a coach of his younger brother Wes’s team in the Montgomery Basketball Association, which was started by his father.
“I think I know (coaching) better than actually playing,” he said. “I think coaching is almost easier for me.”
That being said, Brooks would like to continue his basketball career at the collegiate level if he enrolls at a D-2 or D-3 school. If he opts to attend a D-1 school – he is looking at the University of Pittsburgh, ‘I can just be a fan,’ he said.
Brooks is uncertain of a career choice but is considering sports broadcasting.
“I just think I would be so bored if I didn’t do anything with sports,” he said.
For now, he’s simply enjoying his final high school season under a coach that has brought a new perspective to the program.
“It’s very exciting to get good wins against good teams,” he said. “You finally get some satisfaction.
“The whole team is coming together. We’re a bunch of good guys - we like each other, and we want to win. We didn’t have much experience, but now that we’re starting to get it (Hassler’s new system), we’re turning it on a bit.”
And helping to lead the way is Brooks.
