
NEW MADISON – Congratulations to Tri-Village coach Brad Gray for achieving his 400th career victory in a WOAC win over National Trail. He becomes the 48th coach to reach 400 wins in OHSAA girls basketball history.
The Lady Patriots offense was firing away in the opening quarter as they raced out to a huge 24-0 lead and 35-5 at the half.
Coach Gray’s 400th win appeared to be a foregone conclusion heading into the 2nd half as the Patriots finished the game with a running clock for a 52-14 win over the Blazers.
Gray, now in his 19th year as the girls’ varsity head coach, has averaged just over 20 wins a year … an incredible standard for that length of time.
Coach Gray took a moment after the game to reflect on the 400 milestone.
“This is a team accomplishment; every time you kind of reach milestones like this, whether it was 200, 300, 400, you reflect on everybody that’s had an impact. From all the really good players we’ve had, there’s been a ton of them, you know. All the kids that buy into being the role players who are committed to what we do, to the families that allow us to coach these kids really hard,” Gray stated.
Coach Gray continued.
“Looking further back, my upbringing and the people who impacted me as a kid growing up, all those things come flooding back and the appreciation for the coaches who mentored me. You know, it starts with guys like you probably heard me talk about Bug Thompson back in Wellsville, who was, without question, the biggest coaching impact on me as a kid, growing up,” Gray reflected.
“Then being fortunate enough when I came to Tri-Village, having Bill Moore here and share a room at the TV boot camp and have “Papa Fro” (Matt Renfro) and Lee Falknor take me under their wing, those are a good memory,” Gray stated.
“It’s with great appreciation for the guys who took a young kid right out of college and let me be a part of their staff and made me feel like my input mattered. I think sometimes that’s hard for veteran coaches to allow a young guy to come in and actually speak his mind and try to grow and really appreciative for those guys. And then, of course, now the relationship between Josh (Sagester) and I, where it’s just two guys who are very like-minded when it comes to our vision for our programs. And him being the superintendent and me being the Athletic Director, we can bounce things off each other and both of our programs have benefited from that relationship,” Gray explained.
“So, yeah, all those things just come flooding in when you’re approaching stuff like this. But it’s not me. I mean, it’s the kids, they have won every game, I’ve not won a single game here. I’ve just been very lucky to be in the right place at the right time. I’m the guy that kind of gets to be the figurehead … but, man, there’s a lot of people that have had huge hands on what’s going on, including all my assistants through the years,” Gray added.
“Like Mike Fisherback and my current staff, Scott Howell and Doug Mize. Greg Ely, when I first started, helped us, I mean, we’ve had a lot of people Christy Sarver, Mackenzie Taylor, Laden DeLawder, I can just go on with all the people who’ve been a part of our staff. They have all been huge help to me in this program as a whole,” Gray praised.

In coach Gray’s 19 years at the helm, he has had just one losing season, 10-11 the first year and he was asked if he could have foreseen 400 wins at that time.
“Honestly, it’s hard doing this. It’s even harder doing it at one place. For as long as I’ve been fortunate enough to do it, a lot of places won’t commit to a coach for as long as Tri-Village is committed to myself, and again to Coach Josh Sagester. I mean, we’ve had two coaches that have been here for a really long time, and I think that speaks volumes about the commitment of our administration and our Board of Education, for allowing coaches to come in here and have a vision. Even if it’s not successful right from the start, as an AD, I try to give our coaches time, you can’t just keep having a constant turnaround of coaches. I think when schools do that, their programs suffer because of it. And we’ve been really fortunate to have a ton of support here. So, to answer your question, that was a long answer, but no, if you would have told me back then that I’d still be the head girls coach here,” Gray described.
“I’ve been fortunate and maybe had a little luck going back to when we kind of started making some of our first runs I remember coach Richard Klein and Neil Hans, I ran into them I think maybe the second year that we went to the regional finals. And they said, you know, because I was young, we hope you’re enjoying this, because we’ve coached for years, and we’ve never got to experience like what you’ve experienced. And hearing that from older coaches made me realize like, you better soak it in a little bit and not just expect it’s going to keep happening,” Gray admired.
But for coach Gray, in his 19 years, has got to experience success with many teams, more often than not, allowing him to join 47 other coaches who have achieved 400 wins in girls’ basketball.
That’s a lot of wins, and coach Gray can tell about some of the most painful losses … but struggle a little bit more trying to identify the most memorable wins.
He immediately reflected on one of his most painful losses to Miami East back in the early years, and at the time, the Vikings were a perennial power, winning league titles every year.
The Patriots were knocking at the door with a shot at winning a league title but got rocked by the Vikings, prompting Gray to write on the board that they would never get beat like that again.
“Yes, I was young and maybe didn’t even know what to say at the time, but that loss was painful, we came in with an opportunity to topple the king pin and fell hard … it was the kind of game we can point to now that turned things around for us and became the motivation we needed to get over the hump,” Gray exclaimed.
And it would be the very next season that Tri-Village would take down Miami East to win a league title and catapulted Gray and the Lady Patriots program to another level, and put them on a path to future success.
“I really believe that win against Miami East is the win that got our kids and our program believing we could compete at an elite level,” Gray said.
And it’s no surprise that it also would become one of his top 5 most memorable wins.
- State Championship game vs Toledo Christian in 2023
- Regional Final vs Fort Loramie in 2012
- Regional Final vs Fort Loramie in 2023
- State Semi-final vs Hiland in 2023
- Miami East in 2010
Congratulations to coach Brad Gray and the Lady Patriots Basketball Program. I’m sure in the years to come we might have to ask coach Gray to extend his list of most memorable wins.
