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| Raymond sets St. Peter career scoring record |
By: Pat Beck
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Posted: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 10:54 am
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St. Peter High School principal Paul Peterson (left) presents a basketball to Brodie Raymond for reaching 1,000 points. Right is head coach Kelly Raymond, Brodie’s father.
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ST. PETER — Ever since he came out of the womb, Brodie Raymond has been exposed to basketball.
“When Brodie was literally hours old, I put a Nerf basketball in his crib,” said his dad and lifetime coach Kelly Raymond.
Now Raymond is career scoring leader for St. Peter High School boys basketball. He shattered the record Saturday in scoring 40 points against Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton. That put Raymond at 1,165, breaking the former record of 1,134 by Aaron Loken in 1993-96.
Starting young helped Raymond reach the record. But he has put in a lifetime of work in perfecting his game.
“We played a lot in the yard, and he began playing real basketball in the first grade,” Kelly Raymond said. “I started coaching him in the second grade and have done it ever since.”
“There’s a picture in my dad’s room of me dunking on a hoop that’s about a foot tall,” Brodie Raymond said. “So I’ve had it in my blood since I’ve been born. My dad and my mom (Cyndi) both coached me. When I was young, I used to go to his games all the time. Now I’m playing for him, so it’s come full circle.”
Playing against his dad one-on-one helped Brodie become a better player. His dad is 6-foot-9, and Brodie is 6-1, so he provides tough competition.
“It wasn’t one of those scenarios where it was nice and cute to let your child win,” Brodie said. “My dad and I when we play, it’s kind of a physical background. We play to win. If I beat him, I had bragging rights, which didn’t happen very often. And when he beat me, he’d hold it over me. That’s where I became competitive. But him being so big, I knew I had to get my shot off quicker because he wasn’t afraid to block it back into my face. He’s still 10 times stronger than what I am now.
“My dad has helped me most to become the player that I am now. He’s always challenged me to do new things. The holiday hoops camp that I ran this year I participated in that camp starting my kindergarten year all the way up to my sixth grade year. Every camp he’s done I’ve gone to. He’s helped coach other camps, such as UMD in Duluth and Southwest Minnesota State. Just growing up with basketball, always going to his games as a third- and fourth-grader and now playing as a senior. It’s been a special thing to play since I’ve been that young and now hopefully up to the next level.”
“My dad has taught me how to shoot since I was little. Since I was a little kid, I’ve been grooved to shoot the same way, so all my shots are almost the same. He tells me to just get up on my shot and finish every shot. The big thing he preaches to me is leg lift, like your shot always come from your legs, so that power source comes from your legs and you’re not throwing with your arms. If you don’t have legs, you can’t be a good shooter. Being able to shoot the long-range jump shot is the most definite threat you can have.”
Kelly Raymond thinks his son became a better shooter in the elementary school. “I think the thing that helped him the most is when him and a friend of his did NBA 2-Ball when we lived in Colorado which is where you shoot for a minute with a partner at seven different spots. He did this in 4th grade, and it really helped him a lot.”
Brodie credits his teammates. “All the guys that have played with me deserve a lot of the credit. It’s kind of like offensive linemen in football. They don’t get the glory, but they’re the main reason it makes the thing go. Our players this year have done a really good job of screening for me, especially when I’m getting doubled- and sometimes triple-teamed. They’re coming out and just taking out guys, so I can put the pull in the basket. And they’re giving me the ball in positions where I can do good things with it.”
The most interesting attempt to stop Raymond happened in the Montgomery-Lonsdale game. “They played a triangle-and-two defense, with three guys making the triangle and two guys both on me the whole time, and our team handled it really well,” Brodie said. “A couple of times I was standing in the corner and we were playing 4-on-3 with the other guys. From a personal standpoint, I don’t like it when they do that. But from a team standpoint, it’s great 4-on-3 all the time.”
Raymond started out as a sixth man coming off the bench as a sophomore at Redwood Valley High School. He scored 158 points, averaging 6.3 points per game as a 3-point specialist hitting 49 for 117 (42%).
Moving to St. Peter, he worked his way into a starting role last year as a junior and emerged as the leading scorer with 478 points at 19.9 points per game. “My junior year is where I broke out and found out I could score 20 points a game.”
This season he already has 529 points and is averaging 27.8 points per game along with 7 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 2 steals in leading the team to a 13-6 record, the first winning record in years for the Saints. Three times this season Raymond has scored at least 40 points with 44 vs. Blue Earth Area, 42 vs. Maple River and 40 vs. Janesville-Waldorf-Pemberton.
Raymond has become more than a long range shooter. He has hit 177-419 (42%) on field goals, 101-198 (51%) on 2’s, 76-221 (34%) on 3’s and 103-125 (82%) on free throws.
Raymond became more of an athlete and versatile scorer by working out at the Sports Institute in Mankato for six weeks as a junior and senior. “After getting hurt in football his junior year, he went there and they really trimmed him up and made him faster,” Raymond said.
“I cut 20 pounds before the basketball season before my junior year and that got me bigger, stronger, faster where I could do more things,” Brodie said. “This year I worked with them again, played AAU over the summer getting stronger, faster playing against better opponents, so that was a big factor, too.
“This summer was big in helping me to become more of a driver and putting the ball on the ground to score more. I can’t just be a shooter to get my points. I had to put the ball on the ground and develop that 15-foot jump shot, being able to get it to the rim and finishing against those bigger guys.
Kelly Raymond agreed: “Playing 50 games of AAU this summer helped him as you had to be quicker playing against so many talented players. His work ethic has been tremendous as he is not that naturally gifted with size or speed. He is very competitive and driven and that makes up for some of his short comings. Simply put, he worked harder than other players and made sacrifices. Some players may have chosen to work or go to the beach; he chose to work on his game and get in the weight room.”
Raymond has narrowed his college choices to four Division III schools: St. Thomas, Gustavus, Minnesota-Morris and St. Mary’s. “I’ll probably decide after the basketball season.”
Raymond has set the following St. Peter records:
Points in a career: 1,165
• Points in a season: 529
• Points in a game: 44
• Average for season: 27.8
• 3-pointers in game: 10 (twice)
• 3-pointers in season: 102
• 3-pointers in career: 227
• Free throws in a game: 14
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