BSU Alum Helps Basketball Players Get Game Ready
The Bridgewater State Bears men’s basketball team had their alumni game against Fitchburg State on Saturday, February 10. One of the former student-athletes on the court was Rocky Deandrade, who was on the team from 2014-2018. Deandrade is in the men’s 1,000+ point club with 1,150 points and is 24th all-time in most points. That list also includes his former teammates Michael Lofton and Ryan Carney.
After graduating from BSU with a business management degree, Deandrade founded a basketball hoops training facility in Foxboro called X Factor, where he is the director and the lead trainer. He started it in 2020 with his former high school coach right when COVID hit. This training helps players reach all levels of basketball including professional basketball overseas.
One of the players he trained was Nick Crocker, who was a big man for the Bears in the 2017-18 season, where he played in 18 games before transferring to Bryant University and then to Division II University of New Haven. He’s also trained two players from Worcester State whom BSU lost to in the men’s championship game: Jack Lasbury-Casey and Zion Hendrix.
When The Comment asked how BSU got him into this venture, Deandrade explained, “A lot of what I did and learned at BSU applies to my everyday life.” He also said that the things he learned as a student-athlete correlates to what he does now as an entrepreneur.
Deandrade was a senior on the BSU team that won the 2018 MASCAC Championship, and he says that whole year from start to finish was his favorite memory at BSU. He was one of only three seniors on the team along with Mike Wiederkehr and Joseph Carty. Regardless of how young the team was, Deandrade was not going to leave BSU without winning a championship. That season was when he notched his 1,000th point in a win against Fitchburg State on January 25, 2018.
Deandrade’s also has some wisdom to share with current BSU players: “Stay in the moment and [do] not overlook the privilege you have as a college basketball player; a lot of people would go back to being that college basketball player again. Also, don’t allow yourself to be consumed by basketball, to the point that it’s the only thing about you. Your ability to play basketball is not the only thing that matters when you go out into the real world.”
