As boys’ basketball ramps up its season, fans in the stands cannot help but notice the new face along the sidelines: that of head coach Roy Ramos.

On May 17, @WeGoAthletics’ Twitter account announced that Ramos would be the new head coach of West Chicago Community High School’s boys’ basketball team after former head coach Bill Recchia retired following 11 seasons with the team.

Ramos has a sizable job ahead of him now, as the Wildcats are coming off a rough 2022-2023 season where they went 6-23 and finished eighth in the conference, but he hopes he can help turn this program around.

The Wildcats are 0-4 as of November 29, but Ramos is “glad that the teams we played were solid opponents so they can be ready for the season.”

One of the difficulties this year is that so many of the players are new to the Varsity team.

“A good amount of the players in the rotations lack Varsity basketball experience,” Ramos said, explaining the need for more team chemistry.

Support from off the court is just as important in this coach’s playbook.

“I want the players, parents, coaches, and, fans all be on the same page on what this team is about,” he said.

Before Ramos came to West Chicago, he served on Roosevelt University’s (NAIA) men’s basketball coaching staff for five seasons, including the 2021-22 campaign in which he led the program as Interim Head Coach. Ramos joined Roosevelt as an assistant coach in 2017 and was promoted to Associate Head Coach in 2020.

His first high school coaching job was at his alma mater St. Joseph High School in Westchester where he helped the team solidify back-to-back regional championships as an assistant coach. From 2014-2017 he served as an Assistant Coach for the Illinois Institute of Technology boys’ basketball team (D3), and he has been an AAU director and a 17U Coach for 17 years (2006-present).

Now with the Wildcats, this veteran coach is confident the team has promise, but they are “still trying to figure it out on offense.”

Building a strong offense, and creating a supportive environment for his players, is an area of expertise for Ramos, who started coaching at 18 years old.

“I’m not going to judge the first season off the record. Instead, I want to see a strong foundation for the next years, and make basketball something that matters to everyone, something bigger than the players and be sport that people care about and be apart of the great West Chicago sports,” Ramos said.