While Seaforth High School was still under construction, John Berry would make a weekly 10-minute drive from his home to ride around and look at the progress.
Already coaching kids aged 6-14 through his own Youth Hoops Basketball Camps in Chapel Hill, Berry saw the upcoming high school as a new opportunity.
“I said to myself, ‘Man, this would be a place that I would love to go and coach down the street (and) turn into a winning program,’” Berry said. “I mean that would be a dream come true.”
Berry was able coach the school’s boys’ junior varsity team for two seasons, and he served as the senior director of the girls’ varsity basketball team, however, he was never given the keys to the boys’ varsity program. But, after two winning seasons, a top recruit and a disappointing 2023-24 campaign for the Hawks, the opportunity became reality.
Seaforth officially named Berry as its boys’ varsity basketball head coach on May 15, making him the program’s third head coach since the school opened in 2021. Given the schools’ success in other sports in such a short time, the high standards set for the basketball team with the help of Jarin Stevenson and his father, Jarod, and the change in athletic directors from Jason Amy to Jared Worley, it seems as if the job would come with significant pressure.
But, for Berry, the job can’t apply more PSI than he has already put on himself in the past and now.
Good Pressure
Growing up, Berry enjoyed playing basketball, but his small frame, standing only five feet tall while weighing 70 pounds as a senior, didn’t allow him to play in high school.
“I’ve played basketball my whole life,” Berry said. “I was very good at it growing up, but my size just wasn’t conducive to playing at a higher level.”
Instead, Berry decided to used his physical abilities for wrestling in high school. In his sophomore and junior years, he wasn’t a very good wrestler as he matched up against guys who were 30 to 40 pounds heavier in the lowest weight class. It wasn’t until Berry’s mom set him up with George Ingram, a state-championship winning wrestling coach at Gratz High School in Philadelphia, that he starting seeing significant improvements.
“This guy was gracious enough to allow me to work out with him in the summers with his team,” Berry said. “(Ingram) pushed me physically, (I) got some skill, (and) got my confidence up. I came back that senior year at my high school, (and) I was running through people. I went from winning no matches in the first two years to being 17-3 my senior year.”
Said Berry, “That literally is the origin story of why I coach. From that experience of how he turned my life around by showing me how to do things and integrating value lessons, I now do the same exact thing for the kids that I coach here at Seaforth.”
Once Berry got bigger as an undergrad at Howard University, he started playing club basketball, and he eventually began playing in a semi-pro league after starting work at Hewlett-Packard. A friend from grad school named Rodney Tucker introduced him to one of the youth basketball teams he coached, piquing Berry’s interest to take his basketball knowledge to the sidelines.
In 1993, Berry coached his first recreation team in Berkeley, California, leading the team for a few years. He moved to New Jersey in 1997, and after starting to coach another rec team, he never stopped. He eventually got into coaching an AAU team, following the boys to high school where he took over as the freshman team’s head coach.
Then, in 2006, Berry moved to Chapel Hill and took his first high school head coaching job at Woods Charter where he coached the boys’ varsity team from 2007-17 and the school’s girls’ varsity team from 2016-19.
Now at Seaforth, a bigger school with talented kids, Berry is feeling the weight. But, that’s not going to change who he is and how he prepares for this type of opportunity.
Berry is a people pleaser, and he has no problem with it.
In fact, it’s his personal mission to make people happy, and in sports, people are happiest after a win.
“I’m going to be harder on myself than anybody else could be,” Berry said. “I have a natural desire to please people. I want people to be happy. I want people to be successful…So, being successful and winning a few ball games is certainly something that I want to do.”
Said Berry, “And I certainly do feel some pressure in doing it. Not bad pressure, but it’s good pressure.”
However, winning isn’t just the only way Berry wants players, coaches and the community to have joy. Part of the weight of his title is pouring into the kids’ lives and bringing them happiness with the lessons that can be applied off the court which is what Coach Ingram did for him.
“Most importantly, with the kids, some of the value lessons and the stuff that I’m trying to teach them, they’ll really take that and run with it,” Berry said. “They see these value lessons that we teach, like commitment, hard work and accountability. They’ll take that to heart and they’ll apply it to everything else in their life.”
Full-Court Pressure
Berry held his first 6 a.m. workout and open gym session with members of the team just two days after being named the head coach.
The school knows there’s no such thing as too early. Seaforth enjoyed early fortune under inaugural head coach Stevenson who led a team featured by his son, a four-star recruit that now plays for Alabama, to a 12-10 record in the 2021-22 season and a 18-9 record in its 2022-23 campaign. Both of those years ended in the state playoffs.
Though, in the only year under former head coach Leo Brunelli last season, the Hawks fell to a 10-15 record and failed to make the postseason.
So, it doesn’t take long for things to change. For Berry, one year in a program with high expectations can result in two things — success or failure.
“It all starts with expectations, and the expectation is this: I’m going to do whatever I have to do from a preparation standpoint to maximize our chances for success.”
Two weeks before even being approved by the Chatham County Schools Board as Seaforth’s head coach, Berry was already watching film, looking at sets, and planning drills and development plans.
Basketball wise, he wants his team to apply its own pressure on opponents, centering itself around defense.
“I like smart, tough, (and) physical defensive-minded players,” Berry said. “I definitely do not want to get into a track meet with a team.”
Other main focuses are being able to break a press and what Berry describes as “(valuing) the basketball.”
“One of the ways that we value the basketball, which permeates throughout everything, is playing as a team,” Berry said. “Team offense, move the ball, back cut if they’re over playing you, being strong with the ball, making that extra pass, (and) minimize the turnovers.”
Berry understands that the new culture and improvements won’t be installed overnight, but by being around the program from the jump, he has an advantage of knowing where to start on day one.
From his first day on the job, the boys are already scrimmaging in open gym sessions, jumping straight into competition six months before the start of the season and while they can still do activities before the last 10 days of school.
“If we do a little each day, and it’s positive and we’re learning and we plan as a team, then I believe that we have a chance of being successful,” Berry said.
If there’s anything Berry learned from driving around the school’s construction site years ago, it should be that building a program up to its expectations is a process.
Berry said that he sees himself coaching the Hawks for “a minute,” as in “six years, eight years, 10 years.”
But, to deal with the pressure now, he’s moving like there’s no time to waste.
