ASHLAND – The game of basketball found a way to crush John Ellenwood’s heart.
It’s the reason he has worked for decades to never let it go.
Now in his 15th season as the Ashland University men’s basketball coach, Ellenwood was cut from his team in junior high school.
The heartbreak energized him to become one of the best-ever players at Sylvania Northview High School.
Offered a scholarship to Division II Lake Superior State, his visions of success instead were met with subpar play that led to a redshirt and had him searching for answers.
Ellenwood, though, said he simply couldn’t stop loving the game, and that passion led him to an All-American career at the College of Wooster and eventually a coaching career at Ashland — that now is second to none.
“I learned to kind of fight really hard to make sure that basketball isn’t taken away from me,” he said.
Lucky for Ashland.
On Wednesday at Kates Gymnasium, Ellenwood’s career reached another pinnacle. The Eagles’ 98-76 win over Kent State-Tuscarawas was his 247th victory at AU, pushing him past Roger Lyons for the top spot in program history.
The guy who got his first head coaching job in his late-20s at Division III Thomas More University – where he was 3-23 in his first season – now has hopes of leading the Eagles (4-0) to the NCAA Tournament for the fifth time in the last decade.
They were the preseason pick to win the Great Midwest Athletic Conference and are ranked 18th in the nation, their first time in the Top 25 in four years.
“I’ve just always said that the team that’s toughest always seems to find a way to win,” Ellenwood said. “We try to recruit guys that embody that and they have to be quality people. I learned that from the College of Wooster; it’s one thing to win, but it’s another thing to win with people that you love to be around.”
“We’ve built culture here,” he said. “I’m more proud of how many guys have graduated than I am of 1,000-point scorers, just because the guys that graduate go on to do great things and they’re bringing us victories every day.”
Ellenwood’s first game leading Ashland could be looked at as a microcosm of his coaching career there. Ohio Dominican rocketed to a 15-0 lead in that game in 2009 before the Eagles chipped away for a 66-61 win.
Similarly, the coach’s first five seasons at AU had their frustrations. Ashland was just 65-67 overall and never finished higher than fourth in the South Division of the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.
Al King, AU’s athletic director, was the sports information director at Ashland when Ellenwood was hired by former AD Bill Goldring. King said he never doubted that the winning tide would turn.
“You can tell John was mentored and has coached with guys who emphasized to him that you go to work every day and you prepare every day and you teach the game of basketball the right way,” King said. “He just refuses to cut corners there, and I think that’s a big reason – that passion and that detail – why his kids respect him so much.
“They just love him because he’s as invested as they are. Once he could get on solid ground, get the program built and headed the way he wanted to, he won.”
Since the 2014-15 season, the Eagles have averaged 20 wins a year and Ellenwood is nearly 100 victories over the .500 mark (182-84).
In 2015-16, they posted the best road record in program history (11-3) and made the NCAA Tournament for the first time in a quarter-century.
In 2020-21, after winning their first-ever GLIAC title, the Eagles won a game in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1990-91.
Brook Turson, an assistant coach for Ellenwood for the last nine seasons, has seen the program’s evolution from all sides.
He was a four-time Firelands Conference Player of the Year and 2,000-point scorer at nearby Plymouth High School when he became the first player Ellenwood recruited and offered a scholarship to AU.
Turson opted to try his hand at Division I Central Michigan, then went to Columbus State Community College before landing back at Ashland. He became a three-year starter for the Eagles and was part of the breakthrough 19-10 team in 2014-15.
“Everything that I have, a lot of it goes back to what coach did for me, giving me the opportunity to be a player here and then a coach,” Turson said. “The right person is at the top of that (wins) list. He kind of embodies what Ashland University is about.”
Ellenwood’s Eagle teams have been built less on flash and scoring and more on grit and defense. The 6-foot-6 coach would have it no other way.
While his career as a post player at the College of Wooster saw him score more than 1,200 points, it was his toughness inside that led him to back-to-back North Coast Athletic Conference Tournament MVP honors.
With Ellenwood as a senior, the Scots were the first team to be perfect in the NCAC regular season (16-0) and win the league tournament, and they advanced to the Division III Sweet 16.
Ashland has had 10 players with 1,000-point careers under Ellenwood, but perhaps more telling is the fact that the coach has guided four of AU’s top five all-time rebounders.
One of those standouts, Eagles post player Evan Yates became the program’s first All-American in 20 years after the 2011-12 season.
As a coach, Ellenwood has become known for a fiery demeanor that begs for the best from each of his players.
“I think we all knew when we got John that we were getting someone who was incredibly passionate,” King said. “Sometimes when people coach a long time, especially at one place, you worry if they still have the fire or still have the drive. I’ve never worried about that with John.”
One of the hallmark moments of his Ashland career came at the end of his very first season.
The Eagles got the last seed in the GLIAC Tournament and had to play a Findlay team coming off one of the best seasons in Division II history – a 36-0 record and a national title under veteran head coach (and eventual Ohio Basketball Hall of Famer) Ron Niekamp.
Ashland lost the game, 100-90, the closest of three defeats to the Oilers that season. But Ellenwood took issue with a few things that took place at game’s end, and when he and Niekamp met for their postgame handshake, a few heated words were exchanged.
The first-year Ashland coach wasn’t going to shy away from the coaching legend.
“I’ve never been one that backs down,” he said with a laugh when recalling the memory.
“I told him this week, ‘We’re really good when you’re really angry at times, because you just get our guys to play really hard and they see that toughness that comes out in you as a person,’ ” Turson said.
“He’s changed as a coach, but what’s underneath there from a toughness standpoint, and perseverance, that has not changed and I don’t think it will ever change.”
Now in his 15th season at AU, Ellenwood and his wife, Abbi, have four children, and he has become the veteran, elder statesman of a coach.
He spent plenty of time Wednesday heaping praise for his career wins onto his family, coaching staffs and the Ashland athletic department.
Featuring one of the deepest, most talented teams he’s had, Ellenwood needs 20 more wins for 300 in his coaching career. If that happens, odds are the Eagles will be making back-to-back trips to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1990-91.
“You’ve just got to take your lumps and learn from it,” Ellenwood said. “When I took over here, it was just, ‘Let’s build the culture of winning.’ It’s not a thing that happens overnight.
“You just kind of reach for the next rung of the ladder and see if that’s obtainable. We’ve had some really tough times here and we’ve had some great times. The beauty of the game is the ups and the downs.”
