FEATURED: Change you can hear - new coach brings new attitude to Flathead basketball

The room is absolutely bumping.

The music is blaring.

Inside, everyone’s jumping, screaming and sweating. When they get a chance to enjoy a break, they find a drink, have a few sips, take a deep breath and smile. Then they get right back to it.

No, it’s not the club on Saturday night — it’s Flathead boys basketball practice.

“I want this to be fun,” new Braves coach Ross Gustafson said. “This is high school basketball, so if they’re getting in there, we can play music while they’re shooting and going hard. I was always a guy, if music’s going on in the gym, it just kind of elevates me and gets a little of the adrenaline flowing.”

It’s been a tumultuous two months for the Braves basketball program, which endured the unexpected departure of longtime coach Fred Febach on Sept. 24. Less than a month later, his former assistant, Gustafson, was tabbed to take over a team that went just 4-17 a year ago and lost four of five starters.

Playing music at practice is hardly a revolutionary tactic, but it’s emblematic of the type of youthful, high-energy coaching that’s become the signature of the athletic department at the 112-year-old high school.

The fall sports season was a resounding success in the eyes of school administrators, highlighted by the football team’s first winning season in seven years and the volleyball team’s second-place finish in Western AA. The once-moribund boys soccer team went 3-4-5 to tally more points (14) than it had in the previous five combined seasons (12), and Flathead administrators playfully boasted about the Braves’ 5-1-1 fall record in head-to-head matchups against crosstown rival Glacier.

Those three fall programs are each helmed by young coaches with no previous head coaching experience — a trait they share with Gustafson — and a shared philosophy that extends from the school’s leadership.

“There’s excitement (around the boys basketball team) but just with change there’s excitement,” Activities Director Bryce Wilson said. “We can’t always be there, so I look for kids who are not just excited but excited to work hard.”

“Of course it is competitive and intense, but it’s got to be fun, too,” Gustafson said. “They’ve got to be having a good time. I think if they are having fun and they know every day coming to practice it’s going to be a good time, they’re going to work that much harder, they’re going to be that much more excited and they’re going to be that much more locked-in.”

Players speak glowingly of Febach, who helmed the team for 12 years, but things are undeniably different for returning Braves.

“I was pretty nervous,” senior guard Matt Marshall said. “I was used to Febach so at opening tryouts I was like ‘I have no clue what to expect’ but everything (Gustafson)’s done so far I’ve liked and is really helpful.”

While fun might be part of the formula, that doesn’t mean practice at Flathead is easy these days.

“They were dying,” Gustafson said with a laugh just minutes after he wrapped up his first official practice Saturday.

“It’s fast paced,” Marshall said. “He wants more competition and I think that’s how you’ve got to win.

“In (Class) AA they’re not going to just give you a win, you have to fight all the time. When you have that mindset coming into practice it just makes it easier to transition into real games.”

Gustafson’s first practice started with 20 minutes of what he calls “competition shooting” drills and ends with — if he follows his schedule — a virtually non-stop 20-minute scrimmage.

“Those quick paced (drills), I think, translate better,” Gustafson said. “Those are game situations, they’re going to be catching the ball and having to take a quick shot from those spots.

“And scrimmaging without stopping the flow lets them learn from their mistakes on the fly, too. Basketball’s a big game of adjustments. In football, you run a play, you huddle up, you rest and you go. Basketball’s a little more fluid.”

The new Braves coach has a deep-rooted coaching pedigree to back up his new-age leadership style, too. Gustafson played for highly respected, long-serving football (Ron Kowalski) and basketball (Brian Kavanagh) coaches at Cut Bank High School, and played for legendary Carroll College coach Gary Turcott for five years after that.

When the music isn’t blaring and the ball stops bouncing for a few moments at practice, Gustafson is re-working the Braves’ offense and drilling the fundamentals. And making sure he and his players are working in sync.

“Another feel I’m trying to bring is having them prepared and understanding what we’re going to do and why we’re going to do it,” Gustafson said. “I want them to have more clear communication so they have a better understanding of what’s going to happen.”

“He wants input on how the plays work,” Marshall said. “I like to say that I know what I’m doing sometimes and if it’s not working he wants me to say that we can do better.”

Better is at the top of the Braves’ checklist for the upcoming basketball season, not least of all because better tends to be a bit more fun.

“(I think I saw) fun today,” Gustafson said after the first practice. “They had smiles on their face, they were enjoying it.”