Ben Simmons’ school Box Hill Senior Secondary churns out basketballers
This Melbourne school is where NBA star Ben Simmons honed his skills and attracts kids from all over Australia desperate to make it as professional basketballers. So what’s its secret to success?
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A state school in Whitehorse could well be Australia’s greatest basketballer factory.
Box Hill Senior Secondary, which has just 450 students, has had a record number of alumni go on to make it in the sport.
It’s the school where NBA star Ben Simmons — arguably Australia’s greatest basketball product — spent his teens dominating on the court.
Other former students might not have made it to the NBA, but a huge number have scored on a global and national level.
Three of the 10 players who just competed for Australia at the under-19 World Cup in Greece this month went to Box Hill Secondary.
The school has won nine Basketball Victoria Championship cups in the past 15 years, and more than 120 students have been offered full basketball scholarships at US universities, including 10 from last year’s cohort.
And despite its remarkable number of success stories, the school doesn’t discriminate on ability.
It welcomes anyone to its basketball program, provided they’re willing to turn up and maintain a C-average in their classes.
Basketball-enthusiasts travel from across the country to attend the school and better their chances of one day making it in the US.
Head coach Kevin Goorjian has just arranged homestays for two Perth boys desperate to be part of the program.
Others spend hours catching public transport from all over Melbourne.
“We’ve got kids coming from Keilor, Melton, Dingley, Moorabbin,” he said.
One boy takes a train from Noble Park into the city, then two buses to reach Box Hill.
“That’s how bad he wants to be at this school,” he said.
Basketball isn’t just a co-curricular activity at Box Hill Senior Secondary College like it is at most schools.
It is timetabled into senior students’ routine like a subject.
At least four of the five days students are at school they do a combination of on-court training and weights sessions.
Goorjian said the school struck an optimal balance between focusing on a students’ training and their studies.
It has adopted a system like the US education system to maximise students’ chances of being accepted into a US university and to incentivise the students to commit to their education.
“Your grade point average has to be two or above or you get taken out of the sport and you go to the library and get your grades back up,” Goorjian said.
From as early as Year 9 students are required to take certain subjects to adhere to US university entry requirements.
The school also offers students exposure.
Every second year Goorjian takes two boys and two girls teams to the US to play
basketball against US schools, often in front of recruiters, and to check out the universities.
When the scouts visit Australia, after heading to the AIS in Canberra, they often head to the school to meet with Goorjian and check out his players.
Coming from the US, and a basketball-coaching family, Goorjian has a large network of connections to give his players a leg-up.
He is extremely passionate about his students and their success — sporting and academic — and fights to get them the best opportunities.
He took the job at the school after spending 12 years coaching the South East Melbourne Magic with his brother, Brian Goorjian.
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He has built up the school’s basketball program from just 20 students to more than 140.
Goorjian actually extended the program to cater for Year 9s — as well as senior students —
because of his desire to coach budding 13-year-old Ben Simmons.
Goorjian noticed Simmons when his sister was a student at the school
“I went to the principal’s office and said: ‘I have to Ben Simmons come to this school, I gotta have him on the basketball program’.”
Set the task of getting another 11 boys and 12 girls to establish a Year 9 program, Goorjian recruited Simmons and another 23 students to the school.
Simmons has made at least seven trips back to the school since he went to the US, and with the NBA in the off-season, Goorjian is hoping to see his former student in the next two weeks.
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