Ross Condon’s basketball career finally ended last March. In four years, the Villanova walk-on contributed to a team that played in three NCAA tournaments and came within one game of the Final Four. After graduation in May, it was time for the next step in his life — graduate school at George Washington University.
But Condon, 21, never completely closed the door on the sport. After all, this is the same kid who, as a senior at Potomac School in McLean, spurned offers from smaller Division I and Division III schools because he wanted to be part of a national program. Even if that meant little playing time and paying his own way.
“It was always in the back of my mind that I wanted to get into the sports business,” Condon said. “The plan was grad school. But then a pretty good opportunity arose where I could stay involved in the sport.”
That opportunity was an assistant coaching position at Radford, where Condon was hired as the director of basketball operations earlier this month by new head coach Brad Greenberg. It was a likely destination for a 5-foot-11, 180-pound point guard who always served as a coach-on-the-floor type — both at Potomac School, where he was a Virginia Independent Schools all-state selection as a senior, and at Villanova, where he appeared in 28 games in four years.
“Every time I made a mistake last year and coach [Jay Wright] was killing me, Ross was my guy telling me how to get over it,” said Villanova rising sophomore guard Scottie Reynolds, a 2006 Herndon graduate. “You have to respect a guy like that, especially when he’s out there diving on the floor, keeping rebounds alive over taller, stronger players and going at it as hard as possible.”
Wright and Villanova coordinator of basketball operations Jason Donnelly, a former assistant coach at O’Connell, gave Condon the pluses and minuses of being a college assistant. But it didn’t take long for them to realize his dedication to the idea. Condon drove seven hours from Philadelphia to Radford just to turn in his resume to Greenberg in person.
“You have to remember, these walk-ons are still big-time guys who really could have played at other places,” Wright said. “Ross is such a character-drivenkid, the kind who could always run the other team’s stuff and get our guys in the right place. We knew he would make a great coach if that’s what he wanted to do.”
Condon’s duties at Radford will include coordinating the program’s recruiting database and team travel, film exchange and dealing with the school’s academic support and alumni relations offices. It’s a behind-the-scenes job that doesn’t garner much attention. But Condon has already shown what he can do with that kind of position.
“My dream is to always go to the top level of whatever I want to do,” said Condon, who eventually hopes to get into sports administration. “I made the decision to go to Villanova and I couldn’t have imagined my college years turning out any differently. I think being at Radford will open doors like that for me as well.”
The Condon File
» Former Villanova guard Ross Condon helped Potomac School to the Virginia Independent School state final in 2003.
» Condon, a Springfield, Va. native, is Potomac School’s all-time leader in assists (507). He was a high school teammate of Stanford center Peter Prowitt, the program’s all-time leader in points (1,835), rebounds (958) and blocks (404).
» Finished his high school career with 1,043 points.
