Mark Anthony Gallagher had two options.
He could get transferring or get working.
It really wasn’t a hard decision.
Gallagher is a senior at Archbishop Ryan High School, and he’s always been a talented basketball player. But when he arrived at Ryan, there was a logjam of great players and all had visions of being a starter.
Gallagher was very good, but there were players in front of him who were better.
“We had a really good team, last year the team was mostly seniors, so I knew that if I stayed here until my senior year, I would have a chance to play,” said Gallagher, who lives in Holland. “There was always a part of me that said there were too many guys in front of me and I would never play, but at the same time I was having the time of my life.
“I went to Florida with them. They were all great guys. They were great players and I was seeing great players play ahead of me. It was hard not playing, but I was having so much fun and getting better.”
The getting better was a huge part of it.
Gallagher might not have been on the floor in big moments prior to his senior year, he was on the floor for many big moments in practice. And that was a huge part of Ryan’s success last year.
Gallagher routinely found himself squaring off against Darren Williams, who is now at Florida Gulf Coast. He earned that scholarship by being one of the top players in the Catholic League, but when it came to practice, he never had it easy.
Gallagher made sure of it.
“I took practice personal because I knew that’s how I’d get better and I knew it’s how we’d get better,” Gallagher said. “Scout team was always the job and we had a ton of fun. You can even ask coach (Joe) Zeglinski, we knew how to push that team. We were playing great competition, so we had to push them in practice. I always pushed myself in practice, even when I was a freshman. I had to bring the energy. Nine out of 10 times, I was on Darren and I needed to play well so he could play well.”
Prior to his senior year, Gallagher did his job to perfection.
Senior year, he did the same, but it was a much different job.
Gallagher played himself into the starting lineup. There were times he was bounced out when Zeglinski was toying with different lineups.
Whether he was one of the first guys in off the bench, or he was a starter playing pretty much the entire game, Gallagher did whatever was asked. As as he played better and got more comfortable in his role, the Raiders also got better.
“This year was a lot different, but it was expected,” Gallagher said. “I knew I was going to have an opportunity my senior year because I knew there would be more positions, and we lost a lot of very good players
“There were a lot of ups and downs. Over the summer, I was a starter, but we didn’t have all of our people. I had a conversation with Coach Joe and I took a back seat, but I kept working. When the season started, I wasn’t starting the first five or six games. Then I got a chance, I would bounce back and forth.”
Then, the only place he was bouncing was up and down the court.
He not only became a starter, he was one of the top players on the team. And Ryan shot up the standings, qualified for the playoffs and won a game, defeating La Salle in the first round after falling to the Explorers by double digits during the regular season.
The season didn’t produce a run to the championship game like it did a year ago, but the Raiders certainly made their mark and gave Roman Catholic a tough game before losing in the quarterfinals.
“I started the season off slow, but after it got going, the numbers were there, they got me the ball and shots started falling,” Gallagher said. “It was definitely a great feeling. I know I worked for it. There were a lot of late nights nobody knows about. It was a sign of relief. Just getting there is the first step of it, and it felt so good to be out there.”
On top of his ability to fill up the scoresheet, Gallagher, who plays volleyball in the spring, provided great leadership.
That shouldn’t be a surprise considering what he does in school, where he serves as the student body president.
“It’s exciting, kind of cool to walk around knowing that everyone knows you,” Gallagher said with a laugh. “It was exciting when I first got it. I’m the only kid from my grade school for as long as anyone can tell me, so when I got here, I knew nobody. I had to start from scratch. It was eye opening to see how far I came in four years.
“It’s exciting. It’s a cool role. It’s stressful, but I love every single moment. Running announcements, doing events in school. Speeches at events, we do a whole month of a bunch of games going into a finale day, running that. Help with guests at the school. I get to give a speech at graduation, that will be exciting. I have to start writing that. I really love representing Ryan.”
Next year, he’ll represent a new school. There’s a chance he’ll continue playing hoops, too.
“I grew up in business, my parents run two of them and I know I’m good at it,” said Gallagher, who will major in business. “There’s a lot of opportunities. You can work 9 to 5 and get a salary or do your own thing and test your limits. I’m not set in what I want to do. I started doing well in school, started with my parents stressing it, but it came easy to me. I am not in my room studying for hours every day, but I push myself.”
