Fly like the Eagles: CFCA boys hoops’ new culture leads incredible turnaround

Like the cover of a book, you can cast a lot of ill-informed judgments about Central Florida Christian Academy boys basketball coach Albert Settles based on a shallow assessment of him from the outside. 

If you just give Settles just a glance, you’ll probably assume, based on his small stature — around 5-foot-7 and maybe 130 pounds soaking wet — that he wasn’t much of a hooper. You may also assume, based on his appearance and energy — glasses, big smile and pleasant demeanor — that Settles doesn’t have much of a bark, let alone a bite. Similar judge-a-book-by-its-cover-assumptions could also be made about his team, which, if you watch them during warm-ups, quite frankly just don’t pass the eye test.

Oh, how wrong those judgments would be.

Settles was a heck of a player back in his day as the point guard for The First Academy, which finished with records of 27-5, 25-6 and 24-4 in his last three seasons in high school. He was considered a floor general or coach-on-the-court type of player who made everything fit together. To be that type of player at his size, you’re going to need a loud bark and an even bigger bite; luckily, for both his TFA teammates back in the day and his CFCA team these days, Settles has that dog in him.

The intensity, passion and understanding of the game Settles played with has carried over from the hardwood to the sideline, and it has been the driving force behind a remarkable turnaround for an Eagles team that finished 6-19 last season. Under the first-year coach, CFCA has a 21-8 record, won the district championship, earned a berth in the regional title game and is just three wins away from hoisting a state championship trophy. 

Establishing the culture

Turning a program around isn’t easy, winning games isn’t easy, and competing for championships isn’t easy. Settles knows this. That’s why when he accepted the position as Eagles coach in April, he knew he had to get to work quickly and lean on what he knows best: Building real relationships.

“When I first got hired, I knew I had to hit the ground running,” he said. “I had to start building relationships with my players, and because I’m a bit of a gym rat, the way I build relationships is by jumping in the deep end and just start working with guys. That’s how I know how to relate to them. For me as a player under my former coach at TFA, Chris Mayberry, my fondest memories weren’t all the games we won. It was the relationships I was able to build, the talks we had, just the day-to-day things that we endured, the hard moments, the good moments. So, as a coach, it’s been all about building relationships and establishing a culture.”

As he settled into his role and went to work with his new players, the goal for this Eagles team was to get everyone to buy into the new culture. For Settles, that meant treating the little things like the biggest thing.

“In the summer, establishing the culture was my main goal,” he said. “I didn’t really care about wins and losses; I wanted our players to understand that things like being where you’re supposed to be when you’re supposed to be there is important. I wanted them to know that we were going to hold them accountable to our standard both in and outside of basketball. One day, this ball is going to stop rolling, so I needed to make sure our guys understand before we can be a championship-caliber team, we have to be championship-caliber people. We do that by getting the little things right — whether it’s finishing drills during practice, being on time to class or just generally doing things that we don’t necessarily want to do but make the difference in the long run. There were a lot of ups and downs in that process as far as getting the guys to fully buy in.”

Fortunately for the CFCA hoops faithful, because building relationships always has been at the center of how Settles approaches the game, he had some help in getting through those ups and downs in the pursuit of a cultural overhaul.

“Alex DiPaolo, he’s a transfer from Hagerty High; he was the very first new player to come to CFCA,” Settles said. “I’ve had a relationship with Alex for quite some time; he played on our AAU team. Through the years, myself and his family have built a great relationship, and we’ve grown to really know and trust one another. So, for him to leave Hagerty and come here is just a testament to the trust we have. … I’ll also say that him coming over here early in the summer was extremely important to helping establish our culture. Having someone who knows what our standards are and can be that person who leads by example is necessary. He’s the kind of kid who is always going to finish first during drills. He’s a 4.3 GPA student. He’s the type of leader (who) helps turn teams in champions.”

From DiPaolo’s perspective, the trust he has with the coaching staff made it easy to be the Eagles’ standard-bearer.

“Everybody just buying in has been the biggest reason we’ve been successful this season,” DiPaolo said. “Coach Albert, Coach Greg, the whole staff really, they know what they’re talking about. Obviously, I wasn’t here last year, but it didn’t really feel like when I got here that there was an established culture. So, I think when everybody bought into the new culture this year, it made the difference we’re seeing now. … Us really treating each other as family and being more than just a group of basketball players is what our culture is all about. Just caring about each other as people and really being willing to put ourselves aside and play for the team and play for God. I think that’s why we’ve been so good this year.”

Winning takes sacrifice

Along with DiPaolo, the Eagles brought in a few other key transfers to round out the rest of the roster — including DiPaolo’s teammate at Hagerty, Julian DeClou. The two have been central to Settles’ cultural and schematic approach to the program’s incredible turnaround, combining for an average of 29.8 points, 13.3 rebounds, 5.9 assists and 3.1 steals a game. 

However, with every new culture, coach and players, what was there before will either need to change or no longer be there. 

“Our senior guard, Semaj Washington — who was a 16-point-per-game scorer last year — when I first met him, to be honest, he was thinking about transferring, based off the last season,” Settles said. “Getting him to stay was definitely one of my biggest priorities.

“When I think about some of the better teams when I was at TFA, it was the guys (who) have always been there that led those teams,” he said. “So, keeping Semaj was a really big piece of the puzzle for me, but I knew we weren’t going to ask him to do the same things, scoring-wise. ... That wasn’t the easiest conversation to have. Just thinking about his perspective, this new coach comes in and starts doing this, that and the third, and all of a sudden, a lot of what (he) did on offense is taken away. So, it wasn’t the smoothest transition, but as we established our relationship and we got him to understand that we truly care about him and we had his best interest at heart, it started to come together.” 

Washington’s sacrifice not only helped his prospects of playing college ball, but also it has helped make his senior season one that could see him win a state championship.

“It was a hard transition at first,” he said. “At one point this season, I was scoring maybe two points a game, and it was hard to get used to that. Now, that’s not the case anymore, but that experience made me realize that I had to learn how to affect the game in different ways and how to score points in different ways than I did last year. When coach talked to me, he told me it was going to be a little uncomfortable. He told me my scoring was going to drop, but you’ll find ways to impact the game. I just had to figure out how to do that. Once I got used to that idea, it became easier.”

With this new culture, players willing to sacrifice and real relationships being the bedrock of the team, it’s no wonder this turnaround happened so fast. The last question that’s left to ask is, what do they need to do to give this Cinderella story its fairytale ending?

“We just have to all step it up a notch because going into these last few games, our opponents are going to play as hard as they ever had,” DeClou said. “I think we just have to come ready for a fight. We just have to want it more than them. I think we will. I know we’re all prepared and ready to give everything we have.”