Rao named winner of Cudney award
The awards just keep on coming for Brock women’s basketball coach Mike Rao.
After leading his team to an Ontario University Athletics championship and a USPORTS silver medal in the 2019-20 season, the Welland native was named the OUA and USPORTS coach of the year. Since the end of that season, Rao was named the 2020 St. Catharines Sportsperson of the Year and, most recently, he has been selected as the recipient of the City of Welland’s H.L. Cudney Memorial Award. In circulation since 1962, the award is presented for outstanding achievement or contribution to sports in Welland.
Rao, who always credits this team for buying into what he was selling and believing in his vision, is honoured by the latest award, especially considering it is being given by his hometown
“I grew up there and, believe me, it is humbling,” he said.
Rao is very familiar with the previous winners of the award.
“I know almost everybody on the list.”
Like all lifelong coaches, Rao can’t wait for the COVID-19 pandemic to be over so he can return to something he loves doing.
“I am coming back differently in the respect that we are so fortunate and we didn’t know what we had until they took it away. My approach to it is I just want to play.”
He doesn’t care what forms that entails.
“A lot of coaches, when you get into meetings and the schedules are coming out, they say this isn’t fair and this isn’t fair, but I am not looking at it that way at all. I am looking at it as an opportunity to play and who knows what this year will bring? I am just hoping to get back with the girls and be myself in that respect. I don’t change much on the court or in practice.
“I am grateful that we still have the game and I will be grateful when we are back.”
The return to play after more than a year will not be without its challenges. His biggest obstacle will be to make his group of players a cohesive unit.
“This a completely different group and I haven’t seen this team or these people for a long time. The first thing to do is to figure out who we have, who can play where and figure out how to make them play well together.”
Rao has a ton of empathy for his players and all the athletes who have lost a season or seasons to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“They are struggling and this cohort year is making them struggle more.”
He feels the isolation young people have faced is a big factor.
“I don’t think teenagers or young people deal with isolation well and the ideas of not socializing with your friends, not getting together and not having any really meaningful conversations,” he said. “The phone is one thing but you can’t beat face-to-face interaction. A lot of our girls are going through that and our cohort year brings another kind of piece to it where there are now one year removed and now there is a second year of recruits coming in. There are a lot of players vying for spots on one team. Players don’t know what other players are like or who is coming in.”
As a coach, Rao is in the enviable position of having a lot of interested athletes wanting to come to Brock and play for him.
“They approached me and I am not going to tell them they can’t be on the team. They want to come to the school, they want to try out and that’s just a fact. I am not going to let go a good player who wants to come to the school and try out,” he said. “If they are good enough, they are going to play.”
Rao is now in a hurry up and wait mode for when he is allowed to return to in-person training.
“That is the plan but who knows when that will happen? I don’t know if outdoor courts are in the mix but if they are, maybe we can do something on the outdoor courts at Brock.”
Like all his Brock coaching counterparts, he will follow all the health and safety protocols of the university.
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