Heat hero Ray Allen hired as boys’ basketball coach at Gulliver Prep

Ray Allen, 19-year NBA veteran, 10-time All-Star, two-time league champion, Olympic gold medalist … and now the new boys’ basketball coach at Miami’s Gulliver Prep.

Allen, as reported by The Herald on Friday morning, takes over a program that went 5-16 last season.

“For our student-athletes, this is special,” said Ira Childress, the third-year athletic director of the Gulliver Raiders. “The players and parents I’ve spoken to are super excited.”

Among the Raiders inherited by the new coach is his son, Ray Allen Jr., a 6-2 junior shooting guard.

Childress said he has known Allen for a couple of years.

“Him and I would talk basketball all the time,” Childress said. “We didn’t talk coaching.”

That changed after this past season, when coach Gary DeCesare left Gulliver to head back to Chicago.

“I had a chance to talk to Ray, but it was not an offer,” Childress said. “We just talked.

“When it became apparent there was mutual interest, I asked Ray if he would be interested in serving as coach.

“He had to think about it, but he got back to me. We went through some details and got it done.”

Allen has been retired since 2014, which is when he wrapped up a successful two-season run with the Miami Heat.

In fact, his famous three-pointer in Game 6 of the 2013 NBA Finals led to the Heat winning the championship. Allen’s corner three with 5.2 seconds left forced overtime against the San Antonio Spurs, and Miami went on to win that matchup as well as Game 7.

Allen, who was not immediately available for comment on his new post, was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in September of 2018.

Jacob Shaw, the former Miami Beach High School coach who recently took a job as an assistant at Florida Memorial University, said Allen’s hiring could have a large impact on basketball at the local, prep level.

“It raises the exposure for the basketball community and the kids,” Shaw said. “It could help bring back high school basketball in Miami to national prominence, where it was in the 1980s and 1990s.

“I’ve just never seen a Hall of Famer, someone of Ray’s magnitude, as a high school basketball head coach in Miami.”

Shaw is likely right. The closest examples in local high schools are in sports other than basketball -- and not necessarily in Miami. For example, NFL Hall of Famer Jason Taylor is an assistant football coach at St. Thomas Aquinas. And Patrick Surtain Sr. went from a three-time Pro Bowl cornerback to his current role as head football coach at American Heritage.

Lawton Williams, who has led Miami Norland to six boys’ basketball state titles, said he likes Gulliver’s move.

“It brings prestige to Dade County basketball,” Williams said. “I would assume he would do a great job coaching young men.

“Together with Melvin Randall (hired to coach Miami Northwestern after winning nine state titles in Broward County), it brings more competition to Dade.”

Childress, the Gulliver AD, said Allen has a lot of wisdom to pass on to the players.

“Everyone knows Ray was a great player,” Childress said. “But his knowledge of the game was widely regarded as among the best in the game. His leadership skills and attention to detail are unparalleled.”

This story was originally published August 20, 2021 at 10:45 AM.