Alex Ruoff wishes he got back to Hernando County more often. He moved away when he graduated from Central in 2005 to embark on a basketball career that would eventually take him all over the world. There are still some friends he keeps in touch with from his high school days. But one particular relationship from his time with the Bears remains quite solid.
“I talk to Coach Sedlack twice a week,” Ruoff said. “Still have a strong connection to Spring Hill, Hernando County, and just kind of an overall gratefulness to come from there.”
Ruoff had just gotten off from another hard day of practice with the Greensboro Swarm, the North Carolina-based NBA G League affiliate of the Charlotte Hornets. He’s not playing anymore, the now 38-year-old retired back in 2022.
These days Ruoff has taken on a new career path into the coaching ranks. He joined the Swarm as an assistant this summer and will be on the bench when the team begins its season on Nov. 10. “It’s going terrific,” Ruoff said. “I’m about a month in now. I spent the first couple of weeks with the Hornets, which was just really great, just learning a lot. A lot of growth.
“They’ve got a heck of a staff there under Charles Lee and all their assistants. They all come from winning cultures and it was a great experience to be around that. Now, being in Greensboro with our own staff and our players, it’s just been a great start.”
Ruoff played for a wide variety of coaches during his professional career. He played under both John Beilein and Bob Huggins when he was the starting shooting guard for three seasons while at West Virginia University from 2005-09.
Yet he maintains a close bond with the man who coached him at Central, John Sedlack. The original boys basketball head coach at Central, Sedlack spent 18 seasons at the helm of the Bears and later returned as an assistant under Matt Zandecki, one of Ruoff’s friends and former high school teammates.
“The Lord blessed me with some amazing coaches in my life,” said Ruoff, also mentioning Sedlack’s longtime assistant Jeff Spivey and his coach at Fox Chapel Middle School, Dan Garofano. “Those three men changed the course of my life and they were just heavy impacted on me.
“When I went to West Virginia, played for John Beilein, played for Bob Huggins, they molded me into the player and the man I became. Having that heavy influence from coaches, I knew right away I wanted to coach. I thought it was going to be at the high school level before the pro career took off. I just fell in love with the level of the professionalism at this level.”
So just how much of Sedlack, an old-school New Yorker who ran a disciplined program and always spoke his mind, is reflected in the coaching style that Ruoff is still crafting? “A lot, a lot,” Ruoff said. “He is an attention-to-detail guy and to have that at that age, at that level, really propelled my career. It’s the only reason I ever made it to West Virginia and to play on afterward. And I got the same coaching from John Beilien.
“Just attention to detail really set me on a path to be successful at the pro level. So now, in my own coaching, I don’t skip over details. I think that’s where the success lies. So I owe a lot to Coach Sedlack setting that tone for me and giving me that example.”
It’s hard to argue that Ruoff is the best basketball player to ever come out of Hernando County. No one else really has a comparable resume. Prior to a growth spurt that made him 6-foot-6 and the tallest guy on the court for the Bears, Ruoff was a point guard for Garofano at Fox Chapel.
Even at his size, he still played more like a guard during a dominant high school career, and that skillset came in handy when he came to the Mountaineers. He would set school records for most 3-pointers made in a game and a career at West Virginia, and scored 1,420 points with 410 assists during his four seasons.
After graduating, he spent 12 seasons playing professionally, mostly in Europe. The majority of his career was spent playing for teams in Germany and Spain, though he also played several years in Belgium, along with brief stops in Finland and Japan.
“Just extremely fortunate to have experienced it. Just never thought in my wildest dreams I’d ever go on a 12-year playing career around the world,” Ruoff said. “Met a lot of terrific people. Played in over 50 different countries. So that was just a heck of an experience, one I’m incredibly grateful for. But God put a lot of great people in my life to help me reach those levels. So all around just incredibly grateful for
it.”
Ruoff did play in the NBA Summer League twice, for the Washington Wizards in 2009 and the New Jersey Nets in 2010. In 2012-13, he played for the Cleveland Charge and the Iowa Wolves in what was then called the NBA Development League, now known as the G League.
“I got a taste and feel for this league about a decade ago. So now I’m going to get a whole new experience on the sideline,” Ruoff said. “I think it gives me a ground to stand on with players. These kids are chasing a dream, which is really inspiring to be around. They all have dreams to play in the NBA and this league and this relationship that we’re able to build here and grow on is all about development. Everyone here is trying to grow; coaches, players, staff, trainers, everyone here is just trying to develop. So there’s a mutual respect there.
“But being a former player myself, having gone through it, having gone played overseas, I’ve been in these kids’ shoes, so I can relate to how they’re feeling. The uncontrollable circumstances that might get them down from time to time. I’d like to think I have a good perspective, but I’m just so thrilled and happy to be able to pour into them and be a part of their journey doing what I used to do. That’s just a real joy for me.”
Ruoff spent the past two years on staff back at West Virginia, first as a graduate assistant and then as an assistant coach last season. Ruoff met Swarm head coach D.J. Bakker at the beginning of his pro career when he was working out at a facility where Bakker worked as a trainer.
“Through a couple of great conversations, he had a position opened that I interviewed for,” Ruoff said. “It was just a great fit. I had a few other options around the G League, but I thought this was a terrific fit. Just a guy with his experience, where he’s been on NBA staffs, also a former G League head coach. This year, I was really focused on trying to grow as a coach and I just thought this couldn’t be a better opportunity.”
