READING, Pa. – The Reading High boys basketball is starting this season with a familiar face back at the helm. Three-time state champion head coach Rick Perez has returned to lead the Red Knights less than two years after stepping down from the program he helped turn into a powerhouse.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just feels amazing being back here,” Perez said. “You know, the community has embraced me. They’ve always embraced me. You know, this is a place that I have really grown up in and it’s an honor to be back here.”<\/p>\n
Perez coached Reading for 12 seasons before resigning in October of 2023. During that time he built a dynasty \u2014 281 wins, a school record along with five District 3 titles, six Berks County championships and three state crowns.<\/p>\n
Perez says returning is humbling \u2014 especially knowing he\u2019s now coaching the sons and nephews of players from his first run.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s really pulled a level of vulnerability from me and I appreciate everything a whole lot more being back here now,” Perez said.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s group is young, but players say the bond is real \u2014 and Perez\u2019s message is simple: culture, toughness, and togetherness.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re more bonded as a team than any other school, like outside of the court and on the court,” said senior Khaliq Waever. “We’re just more together. His message is really that’s important is culture. Culture is everything and he’s just been teaching us culture for the past few weeks.”<\/p>\n
After falling short in the county finals the last two years, the Red Knights say they\u2019ve learned from it \u2014 and they\u2019re ready to chase something bigger.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m going to let them, you know, write their own story,” Perez said. “It’s their time. You know, this is their story. Their part of the journey. And I think it’s going to be a special one.”<\/p>\n
The Red Knights open their regular season the first weekend in December with a pair of games at the York Tio-Off Tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. – The Reading High boys basketball is starting this season with a familiar face back at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[24413,736,128,130,129,24412],"class_list":["post-40556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-khaliq-waever","tag-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-rick-perez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}