Coach Harwood and the Magruder Colonels sit down with MDVarsity's Jim Quinn to explain the Colonels recipe for success- past and present!

MDVarsity.Com traveled to Derwood, Md., on Wednesday to meet with three returning standouts from Coach Dan Harwood’s three-time defending Maryland 4A West Region champions.

Seniors Brandon Giles, Kevin Roach, and Jeff Leiter would like to end their Magruder careers with a Maryland 4A Championship. Though the three senior players did not play as freshman on the 2001 Magruder varsity squad that went 27-0, won the State 4A Title, and was ranked #1 in the Washington Post, they were among the key players on Magruder’s “Final Four” teams in 2002 and 2003. Each player also has special memories of Magruder’s epic win in 2001 over heavily Eleanor Roosevelt at Cole Field House and would love to bring another trophy back to Derwood.

Each of these three players has attended Coach Harwood’s highly regarded Summer Camps since at least the fourth grade. Many of their teammates are also veterans of Harwood’s Camps, which partly explains the extraordinary chemistry and success of Magruder Basketball. Colonel basketball is a tradition and great source of pride in the Derwood/Norbeck Community. No team in the County consistently attracts large crowds at home games like Magruder, nor travels to road games with such large contingents of fans.

For fan enthusiasm, knowledge of the game, loyalty, and intensity, the closest analogies in Montgomery County to attending a Magruder basketball game are attending a high school football game at a “hot spot’ like Seneca Valley, Gaithersburg, or Damascus.

We are happy to report that the Magruder faithful will be rooting for a squad in 2003-2004 that is as accomplished in the classroom as it is on the basketball court. Coach Harwood was quick to remind us that there are a number of other Magruder basketball players that are doing equally well in their academics.

Brandon Giles is a quick, cerebral 5’8” point guard with three point range and great instincts for running Magruder’s motion offense. Giles was a First team All-County choice last year as he averaged 14 points a game. He has 99 career three pointers and has hit 41% of his three point attempts. A 3.3 GPA Honor Student, Brandon is interested in studying business or pre-law and has already unofficially visited Harvard and Boston University and will be visiting Columbia University in the next week. Brandon had a great Summer as he was the fourth leading scorer in The Rock Summer League at 19.5 points a game. MdVarsity.Com was on hand at The Rock to see Brandon quarterback the Colonels to wins over WCAC powers Gonzaga and Good Counsel this summer.

Kevin Roach is a 6’6” forward/center who will be in his third year as a varsity starter at Magruder. He attended the Landon School as a freshman. Kevin was basically a “blue collar banger” as a sophomore, but had a greatly expanded role in the offense last year. He averaged 9 points and 7 rebounds as a junior. Look for his scoring to increase exponentially this season. Kevin has a 3.5 GPA and 1300 SATs. He plans on majoring in engineering in college.

Jeff Leiter is a 6’ wing guard who is one of the best pure shooters in the D.C. area. A self-proclaimed “late bloomer”, Jeff played on the Magruder JV as a freshman and sophomore and averaged 10 points, 3 assists, and 3 rebounds a game last year in his first varsity action. Leiter got mention in the Washington post and Montgomery Journal last season when he made eight (8 !!!!) three point field goals IN A SINGLE HALF against Richard Montgomery. Leiter had an excellent Summer for Magruder in the Montgomery County Recreation Summer League and The Rock league. Leiter has 1400 SATs (including 780 of 800 on the Math Section) and a 4.55 weighted GPA. Not surprisingly, he intends to major in Mathematics, or a math related field, in college.

After All-American guard Isaiah Swann had transferred to Oak Hill Prep in Virginia before last school year, many people thought that the 2002-2003 season would be a rebuilding year for Magruder. But Coach Harwood and the Colonels confounded the experts with a fifth straight County Title and date with Oxon Hill in the 4A championship game en route to a 22-4 record. The 2003-2004 Colonels hope to use last year’s 50-40 loss to Oxon Hill as motivation for a title run.

In addition to Roach, Giles, and Leiter, Harwood gets back senior guard/forward Todd Ostrom and senior guard Ryan Jughans. Harwood is high on 6’2’ junior forward Matt Boyd and rugged, long-armed 6’3” power forward Elvis Ellis. Kaliem Smith, a quick-on-quick 5’9” sophomore , and 5’11” junior shooter Pat Harwood, the coach’s son, will also be in the mix.

Harwood’s challenge will be replacing three seniors who were all excellent defensive players: Pedro Argueta, generally regarded the County’s premier “defensive stopper” last year: and frontcourt defenders/rebounders Richard Smith and Julius Redd.

“We’ll be really good this year,” said Harwood. “We have some great senior leaders and some really good shooters and offensive players. We’ll need Elvis (Ellis) and Matt (Boyd) to replace the seniors we lost upfront. They are both good players with a lot of potential, but they won’t play defense the way that Smith and Redd did as seniors. We’ll be really exciting and we’ll score… I just hope we can stop a few teams on the other end.”

The guess here is that Magruder will be plenty tough on both ends of the court.

In addition to their County schedule, the Colonels will play in the Morgan Wooten Invitational at the Comcast Center and in the DeMatha Holiday Tournament.

Here is our interview with Brian Giles, Kevin Roach, and Jeff Leiter:

MdV: What would it mean to you, as seniors, to bring the Maryland 4A title back to Magruder ?

BG: I was on the JV as a freshman when we won it …….. it was really exciting, I can remember the game and wishing I was out there playing. It would really be great to win it for the team and the school, especially since we came so close the last two years.

KR: It would mean a lot, it would really kind of complete the careers of the seniors here who have worked so hard to get back to the Championship. It would be a great thing to do for the school and the community. I remember that game (against Roosevelt in 2001) because my brother (Brian) was on the team. It was a great feeling.

JL: I was on the JV that year too, so I didn’t play. But I watched the game and it was such a great atmosphere. I got chills watching the game. I can remember picturing myself playing in the game. That is our team’s goal, of course, to win the Title again.

MdV: Everyone knows what an outstanding coach that Dan Harwood is, but, beyond his coaching, how do you think that Magruder has become such a powerhouse and how has the Program sustained this level of excellence for so long?

BG: I think it is because every year, no matter how much talent that Magruder has, the team commits itself to playing as a team. There is a real standard of excellence that Coach Harwood and the players expect of each other. I think we’ve been so good for so long, that teams fear failing – and I don’t think that is a bad thing.

JL: We really look out for each other. The guys on the team support each other. The team comes first. We don’t usually have the top scorer in the County, but we might get all five starters in the top twenty scorers. Coach Harwood emphasizes the team over the individual. He would call a player out if that player was selfish, but, I think, the other players would catch it even before Coach had to say something. That is just the way we play here.

KR: You’ve got to be a team player to play here. But Coach also develops your game and you can do more things within the system as you improve. I got to do more things on offense as a junior than I did as a sophomore. I think we win because we emphasize the team and play well together.

MdV: There are a lot of high schools in Montgomery County that have real large and enthusiastic followings, schools like Damascus, Seneca Valley, Gaithersburg… do you think that any schools in the County come close to supporting their basketball team like the Magruder fans ? People are still talking about Magruder bringing 6,000 fans to Cole Field House for the 2001 Championship game.

BG: I don’t think so.. I can’t think of another school that gets crowds like us. At a lot of the places that we play, if they get a good crowd it is because half of the people there are Magruder fans who traveled to the game. I would say that Springbrook does get good crowds- and they are LOUD, too!

KR: I think our fans are the best. It is crazy sometimes. Two years ago, in the Regional Final against Quince Orchard, the whole hallway was packed to get in the gym two and a half hours before the game started. The game before (in the Regional semi-finals against Watkins Mill) they were turning people away more than an hour before the game. The people here really support and follow the team and they appreciate the way that we play.

JL: Yeah, it is really amazing. The people really support Magruder basketball. It isn’t just the parents. There are some fans whose kids have been graduated for over ten years, but they are still there EVERY game. We even have a lot of parents, fans, and supporters who come to the Summer games !

MdV: You all grew up in Derwood/Norbeck. When did you first realize what a great basketball program that Maguder was and what a big part of the community it is?

BG: I realized it in the second grade. Really! I was at Mill Creek Elementary and my class came to a game and I knew I wanted to play here when I got old enough. I started going to Coach Harwood’s Camps when I was really little and I knew I always wanted to be part of this…..

KR: I went to private school in elementary and middle school. But my brother played here and I can remember playing at the Camps in like fifth, sixth, and seventh grades and seeing the way Coach Harwood’s teams played and how good they were. So I knew it was a great program.

JL: Coach Harwood would arrange for elementary teams to see Magruder play. I remember when I was a little kid at Cashell Elementary and seeing how good the Magruder teams were and players were… I didn’t think I could play here, that I would be good enough. I really learned how to play and got good through his Camps and playing on the JV here.

MdV: I understand that none of you ever really played “big-time’ competitive AAU basketball. Were any of you recruited hard by Catholic or private high schools when you were in the 8th grade ?

BG: No, not really. No.

JL: No, but I wasn’t as good then as I am now. I just wasn’t that good in eighth

grade. But I use that as motivation when we play private schools.

KR: I went to private school in middle school and I started high school at Landon. There are a lot of great players in the private schools, but I don’t necessarily like the style of play, too many games in the 40-50 point range, Here we run and shoot three pointers and score in the 70’s and 80’s. That isn’t a criticism of the private schools, it is just different. For myself, I enjoy playing with the guys I have know all my life, guys from the neighborhood. At a private school, you are playing with kids from all over the area.

MdV: This summer Magruder played in The Rock league and the D.C. Board Games down at American University. So you’ve seen the best Maryland 4A teams from Prince George’s and Montgomery County. Who will be your toughest roadblock for the Maryland 4A Title this season?

JL: I think Springbrook will be really tough with Folarin (All-Met guard Folarin Campbell) and those guys back…

BG: PG has some great teams like Oxon Hill, Northwestern with Jeff Green, Roosevelt……. Springbrook will be really good.

KR: I just want to worry about getting out of Montgomery County first…then we can worry about the States. In the last couple of years, we’ve gotten upset by Damascus and Blake, so let’s just get out of the county first.

MdV: As we go around the D.C. area high schools doing these interviews, I always ask players to name the five best or five toughest D.C. area prep players that they have faced in high school. So, I want you each to give me the top five D.C. prep players you’ve faced.

JL: I’d say Folarin Campbell (Springbrook); Mitch Guest of Glen Burnie; Stanley Hodge of Gonzaga; James Gist (Good Counsel), he’s great; and Jeff Green (Northwestern), he’s really amazing !

BG: Well, I’d say Isaiah (Swann) is the best. I played with him, not against him, but he is the best I’ve seen; Folarin (Campbell); Jeff Green, he is like a pro player; Stanley Hodge of Gonzaga, he is really good and really underrated; and Antwan Harrison, the inside guy at Gonzaga. That is my five.

KR: Isaiah is definitely number one – he is the greatest! Folarin Campbell is great; Jeff Green; Brendan Albert of Glen Burnie – he was a load, really tough; and Demario Anderson of Oxon Hill was really good.

MdV: Brandon, you told me at The Charlie Weber Tournament that you’ve already unofficially visited Harvard and Boston University. Have each of you started visiting colleges, thinking about which school you might want to attend next year ?

BG: I’m going to Columbia University this week. I’m also planning on visiting Longwood College in Virginia. Those are the only other college visits I have set at this time. I’m not going to sign until April anyhow, so I’ll look at a few schools.

KR: I’m looking at some Division I colleges, like Lafayette, and some Division III colleges. My father and brother both went to Lafayette. I’m also interested in Johns Hopkins, Washington & Lee…. I want a school that is good academically with a good basketball program.

JL: I’m interested in Washington & Lee, Gettysburg, Johns Hopkins, Hood College, Hampton-Sydney, Roanoke College…

MdV.: Beyond the main goal of winning a State Championship this year, do you have any particular individual goals for yourself ?

JL: I just want to get better … the team comes before any individual goals. I’ll be working hard to improve my overall game because I really would like to play in college.

BG: I just want for the team to do well, win the States. I’d like to win the Championship for Coach Harwood and the school. For myself, just want to keep working hard to be the best player I can be … I don’t really have an individual goal in terms o statistics, just a goal to improve all around as a player.

KR: I just want to improve. I felt like I improved a lot last year. I want to keep improving my game to be more versatile. The team goals are most important, but I always am also trying to become a better player.

MdV: I want to thank you all for sticking around after school to do this interview. I’ll ask one last question, it will be a “throw-away’ question, but maybe it will help the raders know each of you better personally. If you opened your portable CD player right now, what CD would be in there ?

JL: Red Hot Chilli Peppers

BG: Three 6 Mafia

KR: Three Doors Down