Three Saint Andrew's Graduates Earn Rare Coaching Opportunities

 

Jacob Mooallem was a manager on the Varsity Boys Basketball team at Saint Andrew's for four years from 2013-2016. Jacob attended Indiana University and was a manager on the Men's Basketball team. Over those four years, he worked his way up to Head Video Manager. He also worked for Draft Express as a video scout which has NBA affiliation. With that experience, he signed a contract as an Assistant Coach for the New Zealand Breakers professional basketball team. After two seasons (2021-2022) with the Breakers, Jacob was hired last summer with the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers as an Assistant Coach in charge of Analytics. He was also an Assistant coach during the Trail Blazers Summer League Championship '22.

Nic Jacobsen was a six year letterwinner on the Saint Andrew's Cross Country Team from 2011-2016. Nic spent the next four years as a member of the NYU Cross Country and Track teams. Nic then returned to Saint Andrew's School as an assistant cross country and track and field coach during the 2020-2021 school year. Saint Andrew's had great success with Nic on staff. The Scots had two individual State Champions and a 4th place boys team finish at the FHSAA Cross Country Finals '21. After convincing the Notre Dame University head coach that he would do anything necessary to be part of his staff, Nic was hired as a volunteer assistant. After proving himself throughout the '21 summer, Nic was quickly hired as a full time assistant at Notre Dame when the position became available. After Notre Dame's 9th place finish last year at the NCAA's National Cross Country Championships, Head Coach Sean Carlson relocated and brought Nic to the University of Tennessee with him as his top assistant coach with the Volunteers.

Noah Ralby played basketball at Saint Andrew's. Noah then went on to play four years at Johns Hopkins and was named captain in his senior year (similar to his high school career). Noah then received a graduate assistant coaching position at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County (UMBC- Div.1). He spent two years in that role from 2019-2021. The UMBC head coach got hired at Utah State in the Mountain West Conference and brought Noah with him as full-time assistant coach as Director of Analytics.

Under the circumstances, these stories are very rare. The common theme is that these young men were driven, confident and willing to do anything to show their loyalty and knowledge. In Noah's case, seldom would you see a Division 3 player immediately get a Graduate assistant position at the Division 1 level. Jacob never formally played basketball. He proved his value with his ability to analyze and break down the game and players better than most anyone else in the basketball world. And Nic's original hire at Notre Dame shocked the running world. "One of the most desirable distance coaching jobs was given to an unknown". The biggest names in the college, Olympic, and professional coaching/running world flooded social media with "how did this happen?" It will be fun to follow their careers and watch them continue to rise at the elite coaching levels.

Go Scots!