NEW CASTLE — Maybe John Corey shouldn’t have been thinking about basketball, but he couldn’t help it.

Corey, a teacher at New Castle High and the head basketball coach at Neshannock, suffered a stroke in evening hours of Jan. 16. He was in the hospital the next three days, was flown to Pittsburgh’s Presbyterian Hospital and, at one point, thought his life might be fading fast.

Still, as he rested in his hospital bed the morning of Jan. 17, not knowing of the severity of his condition, the 33-year-old Boardman, Ohio, native who’s in his fourth season leading the Lancers, was wondering if he had coached his last game.

“I started thinking about that,” he said. “The immediate thought was, ‘How am I not going to finish the season with these kids?’ That was the immediate thought. Then it was, ‘Am I going to be able to give this up?’ I’ve been doing this now for 16 years. It’s what I know. Every winter since I graduated high school has been this, the basketball season.’

“So I was trying to wrap my head around that. How am I going to walk away if that’s what all these doctors are telling me I have to do?”

There were plenty of other thoughts on Corey’s mind, mainly his wife, Kelly, and kids, Jay, 8, and 10-month-old twins, Jared and Kendall. Still, he also couldn’t help but think his career in basketball might be over.

That’s a lot to accept for a person who’s been engrossed in the sport for the last 20 years. Corey played at Boardman High School, graduating in 1996. He coached at Struthers High School in Ohio for several years before coming to Neshannock in 2008. He has led his team to the playoffs every season he’s been with the Lancers, and they’re on the cusp of a postseason berth again this year.

However, a stroke was threatening to end more than just his professional career, and that was a reality Corey had to accept.

“It’s something that I thought for a while I was going to have to give up,” he said.



BACK IN THE GAME

Luckily, quitting coaching never was discussed. Doctors concluded that a blood clot in Corey’s brain had caused the stroke, but they also said, according to Corey, that the clot dissipated on its own and that stress wasn’t the reason for the stroke. They told him he could resume coaching when he felt well enough to do so.

But Corey could take his time — not only because it was the wise thing to do, but also because the inspired Lancers went 2-1 during his absence. Assistant coach Ken Locke became the interim head coach while Corey was out, and the players rallied around him and played for their stricken mentor.

“Everyone came together as one and we were just playing for coach (Corey),” said senior guard John Sansone, who came back early from an injury the day after Corey went into the hospital and scored 30 points in a win over Ellwood City Lincoln. “We just wanted him back and to be OK. It was real hard at first to focus on basketball, especially because we had a game that night. I cried all day in school. I didn’t even know what to do. I couldn’t believe it.”

The road back to coaching has been a steady one for Corey. His first game on the bench came as an assistant coach, 11 days after the stroke in a key matchup with Riverside. Corey said he didn’t feel any effects from the stroke, but he made sure not to become overly emotional or try to handle all his normal duties.

“I’m trying to pace myself, just for the fact that I see what was almost taken from me, and I’m trying to tread lightly to ensure that I am fully recovered before I hit the ground running,” he said.

Kelly, also a teacher in the New Castle school district, was understandably worried about her husband returning to coaching so quickly. Her concern was that he would take a step back in his recovery. The two talked about it, and John explained to her that he would take it easy.

“He said, ‘I’m just going to sit there,’ ” Kelly recalled. “And I said, ‘John, you’re not going to just sit there.’ So, it was maybe five minutes into the game, and he’s sitting there and he was just talking to the kids when they came over to the bench.

“And by the start of the second quarter, he’s (yelling) ‘Get in the game!’ His dad grabbed me and goes, ‘You go tell him to stop yelling.’ I said, ‘I’m not going to tell him. You can go tell him.’ ”



A SECOND FAMILY

John said he felt fine after the game — a win — and retook the reins as head coach Feb. 3. John already had one follow-up appointment with his family doctor a few days after he was released and another is scheduled with his doctor from Presbyterian Hospital in the coming weeks. Unless his physicians change their instructions from before, he plans to continue to coach for as long as he feels healthy.

He said his reasoning isn’t based on winning any championships or for some other competitive drive. It’s because of the relationships he’s built.

He recalled the first time he saw his team after the stroke, the Thursday before the Riverside game. He wanted them to see him a day before the game so their play and emotions weren’t affected. They immediately ran up to him when he entered the gymnasium, hugging him and letting him know how much they missed his presence.

“Those emotions alone from these kids — it was breathtaking, it really was,” he said. “You try and build a family atmosphere, and then when you get that type of response from your team — 15-, 16-, 17-year-old kids telling you, ‘Coach, we love you, get better’ — that’s pretty powerful stuff.

“You try and build that family atmosphere, and to know that you’ve gotten to a point where that is what’s happening; it was extremely moving.”

(Email: j_simon@ncnewsonline.com)