Career Coaches
Will Rey
Year Inducted: 2015
Category: Career Coaches
Schools / Organizations: (Niles) Northridge Prep High School
(Chicago) Loyola University
Biography: Will Rey has coached basketball for more than 40 years at the high school and university DI levels. During his tenure at Northridge, the varsity team owns a 321-154 (.676) overall record and a 151-43 (.778) mark in conference games. Also, the Knights have captured 6 IHSA Class AA Regional Championships, advanced to the state’s “Sweet 16” in 2009 and 2015, won 4 conference championships, 6 conference 2nd place finishes, and garnered 3 major holiday tournament championships. Overall, Coach Rey has garnered 386 varsity wins in 22 years as a high school head coach. In January 2021, the Chicago Sun-Times identified the Top 50 winningest high school basketball programs in the greater Chicagoland area during the previous decade; the Sun-Times ranked Northridge’s stellar 206-86 (.705) overall record as the area’s 31st winningest program.
Coach Rey was voted Conference Coach-of-the-Year in 2007, 2008, 2013, 2017 & 2018 and IBCA District Coach-of-the-Year in 2009, 2014, 2015, 2018 & 2020. He was inducted into 3 Halls-of-Fame: Illinois Basketball Coaches’ Assn (2015), Chicago Catholic League (2017), and Five-Star Basketball Camp (2005), and presented with Sports Faith International’s Lifetime Achievement Award (2010). Before coming to Northridge in 2004, Coach Rey spent 19 years coaching at the collegiate level. As a college assistant coach, he coached teams in both the DI NCAA and NIT Tournaments.
A passionate educator, Coach Rey has worked with the industry’s leading distributors of coaching education resources to produce 13 instructional videotapes for coaches and players. A firm believer in the role of competitive athletics in the growth and development of student-athletes, he recently launched a Coaching4Character
