Doron Ross knows full well the history of Pioneer basketball.
Ross is a senior at Frankford High School, and just being part of the team over the past four years has let him know exactly just what it means to put on that Pioneer uniform.
It comes with showing up every day in the historic gym and representing the Pioneers.
But he also knows how important it is because his father, Jamie, is the coach of the team, and a proud graduate of Frankford.
His son has been around the program even before he showed up to play at Frankford, so he knows the rich tradition of the basketball team.
That’s why when he netted his 1,000th point last week – all in a Frankford uniform – he knew what the achievement meant.
And while he’s never about himself, that was a nice moment.
“I haven’t been able to find the words to describe it, but the one word that comes to mind is immortalizing,” Ross said. “It just feels like this was my chance to leave a lasting legacy. With my dad in the books at Frankford, to join him and other great players, it’s a great feeling. It means more because of where I did it.”
He probably gets that from dad, too.
The elder Ross has coached the Frankford basketball team for years and he’s done it by taking the players who walk into his school, and make them the best basketball players they can be.
He’s done just that with his son.
Ross came into high school as a forward, but moved to point guard. Then he moved to shooting guard, the position he mans now.
Making the switch from point to the offguard wasn’t an easy transition for Ross, but one he was happy to do. It’s also worked well for him and the Pioneers.
“It was difficult to become selfish when I moved to shooting guard, but it’s going pretty good,” Ross said. “Because now that everyone is focused on me, I can distribute it to my team. So that’s the best part when they pay attention to me. I can drive and kick it out to an open man. That’s what I like to do. I think I do catch people by surprise sometimes when I do that. I guess not if they watch film, but if they don’t, they wouldn’t know.” .
Ross gets a lot from his dad.
He also credits his mom, a former track star, for helping him excel in athletics.
“My mom is also a very important person into making me the player I am now,” Ross said. “She’s a sports performance trainer, she was my coach when I ran track and field, she was teaching me all the steps. She started training me two years before the pandemic. She always takes me to the gym.
“My dad would come up to the gym and we’d practice basketball after I was done working out. Those two, they’re very important pieces and people in my life. They definitely try to help me, and they both have.”
Now, Ross is doing for the Frankford basketball team what his parents did for him.
Ross is using his role as a guy who has stuck with the program through thick and thin to be the guy who leads the team this year and beyond.
He won’t be here after this year, but he loves the direction the Pioneers are heading in. He believes they can not only compete this year, but beyond.
“I’m very proud of our team, we’re doing a lot better than we have been, it’s a big improvement from last year,” said Ross, who has led Frankford to a 9-9 record thus far. “I think it’s more time together. More training together. I think that’s what really got us to where we are now.
“We’re scoring more, we have a better record. I think that made us an overall tougher team. We’re close off the court, too. My teammates live really close, so we hang out even before we go to practice. We are all friends.”
Ross is happy to be around his squad for the rest of the season, but he is starting to turn his attention to the future.
It involves basketball and college.
“Next year, I want to play basketball at the collegiate level,” Ross said. “That’s always been my goal. Right now I’m leaning towards a business major. I’d like to learn more about it. I’m just going to have to figure it out when I get there. I still have a lot of time on my hands before college.”
That doesn’t mean his work at Frankford is done.
He prepped hard for this year. He not only hit every open gym and team activity he could, he worked hard on getting in better shape. He did that by joining some other guys on the Frankford cross country team.
“For endurance, we wouldn’t get tired” Ross said. “We practiced at the soccer field, we ran 4 laps around the field, it’s a big field. Then each week we’d add one. I think it helped. It really is a hard sport. You have to keep running, you have to keep pace. You can’t go too fast, you’ll burn out. You can’t go too slow or you won’t get the time you want. I did pretty good for the most part. All we had to do was focus on the training, that’s all we had to do.”
He hopes that pays off in terms of a championship.
“I actually have two goals in mind now that I have 1,000 points, I want to lead my team into making into the Public League championship,” Ross said. “We have to make it there. There are a lot of tough teams that we have to get through, but we can do it. And we want to get back to states. We don’t have a lot of time, but we can still do a lot.”
