Rams boys basketball: It’s Kissal

Former Good Counsel player succeeds Freeman

Last Tuesday, just days after announcing the opening, Fahrner made it official and named former Good Counsel basketball star and coach G.J. Kissal, 34 of Rockville, the Rams’ next varsity boys basketball head coach.

Kissal, in his second year teaching biology at Rockville, fit the criteria Fahrner was looking for in a leader: experience, knowledge and passion for the game and ability to work well with his student-athletes.

This will be Kissal’s first head-coaching gig, but he has a lot of experience to draw from. Last year’s Rockville junior varsity coach played at Good Counsel from 1989-91 and overseas in Greece in 1997-98. He held various coaching positions at Good Counsel from 1995-2000 and has been an assistant at Catholic University (2000-02), Bishop McNamara High in Forestville (2002-04) and Bullis (2004-06). And he helped Freeman at every opportunity the last two years.

‘‘G.J. mentioned he’d be interested in coaching two years ago when he came here,” Fahrner said. ‘‘I’ve known him and what he can do. He has a great combination of knowledge of the game and personality. He works well with the kids. He’s a very good communicator.”

The Rams (10-11) are coming off their best season since winning the Montgomery 2A⁄1A Division in 2000-01 with a 13-11 record. But they graduate nine players and about 95 percent of their scoring. Kissal isn’t concerned with that, though. He’s looking at next year as the start of a new era.

‘‘It’s like a blank canvas,” Kissal said. ‘‘This year will be a year of growing, learning and building. We’re focusing on getting some of the younger guys some experience. This year, the expectation is, ‘Oh, you lost nine seniors and almost all your scoring.’ But part of the appeal to me is head coaching in a situation where there’s a decent talent base and the kids want to learn and get better. Hopefully, we’ll be competitive in the next year or two.”

Kissal has already gotten involved in the Rockville basketball community. Last summer, he hosted Rockville’s first-ever youth camp to get future Rams started early. He’ll run it again this year and has also helped start an area youth league during the winter.

Kissal has received additional college assistant coaching offers. But working at that level helped him realize, he said, that he’d rather be at the high-school level right now.

‘‘I enjoyed coaching college very much,” Kissal said. ‘‘But that has helped me see that I would rather coach high school. You build different relationships and I prefer the relationships I build with the high-school kids. Coaching does fulfill that competitive piece that you miss out on when you’re not playing. It fills that void. The future at Rockville is bright. It just might take us a little time.”