By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
Kerry Foderingham may have gotten a late start when he was named head coach of the Princeton Day School boys’ basketball program just a few weeks prior to the start of the season.
But the new leader of the Panthers is too excited about his new position to worry about any lost time with his team.
“I am very exited,” said Foderingham, who takes over for Tim Williams, who guided the Panthers to one Prep B state title in his four seasons as head coach. “It has been awesome. The kids are great. I think they are excited and pumped up for the season to get started.”
Foderingham wasn’t officially named to the head coaching position until Nov. 2. So he lost out on the opportunity to spend the summer working with his new players. But the new head coach has hit the ground running in preparation for Friday’s season-opening game against Pennington in the opening round of the Solebury School Tournament.
“I was interviewing for a while,” said Foderingham, who is a Health and Physical Education teacher at Franklin High School in Somerset County. “It was a great process. So I had an idea I would be the coach and I got the job two or three weeks before the season. I missed out on that opportunity to work with the kids in the offseason and we talked about that. The kids are open to the challenge of taking in the new things and the challenges of everything being taught from the first day of practice.”
Foderingham brings coaching experience from the high school and college level to PDS. After graduating from Kean University, he served as an assistant coach at Somerville and the head coach at Franklin before taking over as the head girls’ coach at Somerville. Foderingham spent a year as an assistant with the team at Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Madison campus men’s program and last year as an assistant at The College of New Jersey before landing the head job at PDS.
“Philosophy-wise I would like us to try to play up-tempo,” Foderingham said. “I want us to have a free read and react approach and understand how to play. I don’t like it to be very mechanical. I like to teach them how to play rather than just have set plays. The players love that. They enjoy it.
“It is harder to teach and takes a little more time. They have to understand what to do in certain situations. It’s not as much scripted plays. I think the players are doing a good job taking it all in.”
The Panthers went 18-9 last year and return a solid nucleus to the roster.
“We have David Coit and Jaylin Champion back and also have a freshman, Freddy Young,” Foderingham said. “Luke Franzoni, who just committed to Xavier for baseball, is also back. So we have a lot of nice pieces. Nick (Darenkov) is a captain. So we have a great core.
“The best surprise has been the other guys. The guys that were coming off the bench or played just a few minutes. They showed a lot of promise and I hope we can go deep with the bench.”
The Prep B and Mercer County landscapes will be new for Foderingham. But he’s ready to step up to take on the challenge.
“I have a lot to learn with the conference,” he said. “I’m excited to learn the prep teams and different teams that we will play.”
