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When Patrick Scales and Tony Green founded the Georgia Red Storm in 2011, it was to go against the grain of what people perceived of grassroots basketball.

The pair had grown tired of the negativity of grassroots, and had enough of kids being taken advantage of.

Scales said that he wanted his team to built on more than words.

“We humble ourselves on principles of integrity and progressing kids in their career,” he said. “We strive and thrive by having kids playing at the highest level and everyone having the basketball experience as needed.”

Red Storm is seeking athletes who are committed to excellence on and off the court, through winning and skill development for all of its athletes.

A major objective of the program is to emphasize the importance of being a student athlete.

“We have five teams,” Scales said. “We have two seventh grade teams, one eighth grade team, and one ninth grade boys’ team. The other team is a mixed girls’ team on the JV/Varsity level.”

“But we aren't just looking for winners on the court, they have to be pushing it in the class, too.”

Brandon Green is one of their notable players who is a rising freshman in the class of 2019 and is a 6-foot-4 wing with skill.

Another notable player in the class of 2019 is Donell Nixon.

For coach Scales' team, he has plenty of players with high ceilings on the seventh grade level.

“Alec Oglesby, Kendall Lateny, Noah Scales, Sion James, and JR Martin,” Scales said. “We are a first-year team. Any given game one of these kids could be our defensive stopper and leading scorer. No one cares who get the individual awards. They are very unselfish. They are friends on and off the court.”

Scales mentions his best players but also does not fail to recognize how appreciated everyone else is on the team.

“Our bench players are very valuable,” Scales said.

Adam Flagler is a rising tenth-grader and is in the class of 2018 to watch out for as well.

Coach Scales has a mindset on where his players should be based off of his short term goals and looks for ways to make his team better.

“For our older teams, we play up and play in more exposure events,” he said. “If it is a team camp, we get our teams to play up so they can adjust to the speed of the game.

“For our younger groups, we still want to teach them the game fundamentally and for them to be ready before walking on their high school campuses. Skills set for all the teams.”

Kelly Dougherty leads the girls’ teams.

Those groups are built around success and learning from a coach that went to two Final Fours and has a specialists degree from Piedmont College.

The 7th grade Scales team (boys) and 8th grade Green team (boys) won the YBOA state championship.

The teams also won a Big Shots tournament in Charlotte, NC on Memorial Day.

Every short term goal is viewed as a checkpoint on the way to a finish line.

“Our long term goal is built for scholarships,” Scales said. “We build success as a young organization.

“We are very professional and we get compliments from referees. We give those kids an education in using offensive sets and encourage defensive skill.”

Red Storm runs three different offensive sets.

“It is a motion offense and we pattern of our organization after Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs,” Scales said. “The greatest form of flattery is imitation. We just set screens and make sure it is motion and movement creating shots off of different screens.”

Pressure defense is the formula for Red Storm as all of their teams commits to getting in the other teams face to cause havoc.

“Zone pressure, full court 1-3-1 zones and 2-2-1 are zone attacks we implement,” Scales said. “And we play man-to- man, full-court defense.

“Constantly change defenses are our plan. We are deep and athletic. We don’t have a true center like the Warriors.”

Gregg Popovich and Steve Kerr are coaches that Red Storm attempt to mimic.

“We work hard whether it is the coaches or players,” Scales said. “We also work at it so our kids can continue to grow. We also have an academic program that is being worked on that will help kids understand that grades are important. We work on basketball skills on and off the court.”

“Our motto is that you do this for your ego, and then this is not the right job for you. Because everything we do is for the best for kids.”