Coaching Staff

Strength And Conditioning Coach

We are honored to have Deidre on our team.

 She is the perfect mix of mom and Elite Warrior helping to keep our athletes Quick, Explosive, Strong, Flexible and Fast safely in  an age appropriate manner.

Deidre Furst graduated Summa Cum Laude (3.76) with a degree in Physical Therapy from Northeastern University in 1994. Following graduation she completed a Sports Medicine Fellowship through UNC-Chapel Hill and the American Sports Medicine Institute.  She has also been certified through the NSCA as a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) since 1996.  Her career has been focused on outpatient orthopedics and sports medicine. She started volunteering with ABC Lightning January 2019 assisting in strength and conditioning development. She is passionate about teaching quality movement and injury prevention. She was a college athlete competing throwing events for the Varsity Indoor and Outdoor Track and Field team specializing in the hammer throw and discus. She also occasionally competed in the indoor pentathlon. She is a mom of 6 (3 kids, 2 dogs, and a bird.

Heather played 4 years at University of North Carolina at Wilmington. She was inducted with her team into the Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame in 2009. She was team captain for Pickerington High School which was ranked 6th in the nation by USA Today. With her team she won two state championships, led her team with free throw percentage at 89%, she was voted the team’s top defensive player.

        Head Coach & Program Director

Coach Gary Williams has played high school basketball and D3 college basketball in the Ohio area. He also has been coaching youth development basketball for many years. Gary was apart of the initial launch of the USA Basketball Youth Development Program in Las Vegas and has continued as a Gold Certified each year. Coach Williams works a variety of national and International camps like Snow Valley Basketball School, USAB Regional & Gold camps.  His focus is teaching fundamentals to help prepare players for their middle school, high school and college careers. We have a better than 90% success rates of players making their teams. We have several players currently that have offers and interest for many D1,D2 and D3 schools. We have recently teamed up with USJN, Bluestar Media and Bluestar All American Camps to provide an additional level of exposure. We also play in major College viewed or visited tournaments to insure that our players are being seen when they are ready. We have the benefit of a smaller intimate family feel environment. We focus more on developing our existing  players rather than constantly recruiting new players and brining them to the program each week. We welcome you to be considered for this incredible program.