Reece Wallace Commits to Grays Harbor College After One-Year Break From Basketball

Basketball just won’t let Reece Wallace go. 

After a one-year hiatus, Wallace, a 2018 Toledo alumnus, will be back on the hardwood, this time for Grays Harbor College men’s basketball team. He announced his commitment on Twitter on Thursday, April 9, after taking a year away from the game following his freshman year playing at Wenatchee Valley College in 2018-19.

Returning to the game was never an if — it was a when and where, and Wallace’s path to where he is now is filled with twists and turns.

Following a decorated high school career with the Indians, Wallace had zero offers from colleges after Toledo lost out at the state tournament his senior year in March 2018. 

A two-time Chronicle All-Area team selection, Wallace was named to the Associated Press All-State honorable mention team his senior year, along with first team all league. He averaged 16.5 points per game while helping the Indians reach the 2B state tournament, even scoring 27 against eventual state champion Kittitas.

But Class 2B players have few options at the next level if they aren’t either 6-foot-plus, have considerable athleticism or average 20-plus points per game. The 5-foot-9, 140-pound Wallace had none of those.

In a last ditch effort to continue playing the game he loves, Wallace sent his highlight reel to every Northwest Athletic Conference men’s basketball program, 34 teams in all. 

Within two days he heard back from Wenatchee Valley College coach Jeremy Harden, who was in a rebuild mode after losing every player from the previous year. Harden, in his second year at WVC, was starting from scratch and needed players who could score in bunches — Wallace’s specialty. Clark College was the only other program that also reached out to him, but the Penguins were returning nine sophomores and Wallace would have to walk on.

“I looked at it from the standpoint that I could probably get some playing time at Wenatchee if I bust my butt, because no one knows the system, no one knows what (Harden) wants to do,” Wallace said. 

He signed with Wenatchee Valley near the end of May, one week before the signing deadline. 

He appeared in the Knights’ first 11 games his freshman year, starting six of those while averaging 5.5 points and 17.2 minutes per game. 

Offensively, it wasn’t the season he had hoped for. His shooting efficiency dropped as he went from being the primary scorer his last two seasons at Toledo to being a role player at Wenatchee. So he earned playing time in the trenches, showing Harden he could play hard-nosed defense at the two-guard position. Soon he became the team’s best defender, tasked with guarding guys like RayQuan Evans, who’s now playing for Florida State University.

“That’s where I made my way into the starting rotation toward the middle of the season,” Wallace said. “It was a dogfight to get some playing time.”

Even with the playing time, the lack of scoring eventually took a toll on him. Wallace played 24 minutes in the Knight’s season-ending loss during the Sweet 16 of the NWAC tournament as WVC finished 16-12 on the year. Wallace was held scoreless that final game.

His shooting woes had zapped his confidence. It was his worst individual season of basketball in his career, he said. That, coupled with a myriad of factors, including a brutal workload of practice and school work and uncertainty over which of his teammates were planning to return the following year, Wallace needed some time to think.

“I’m really hard on myself,” Wallace said. “I just expect great things, and not to get those expectations set me back a little bit.”

So he decided to take a year off from school and basketball and unenroll for the 2019-20 academic year. Ninety percent of his life had revolved around basketball and school and he wanted to step back, clear his mind, relax and not have the everyday pressure.

“It was a very tough decision for me to have to make,” Wallace said. “I wanted to figure out who I was outside of basketball. At the end of the day, your days on the court are going to be over with so you might as well figure out what you’re going to do and who you are when you’re not dribbling the ball.”

He moved back to his parent’s house in downtown Toledo after classes ended in spring 2019, searching for a fresh start and vowing to take a break from the game.

That lasted four days.

Wallace would be scrolling through social media on his phone at 10 p.m., grow bored, grab his keys and drive to the gym for a late-night shooting session.

“I tried, I really tried,” Wallace said. “I said, ‘You’re not going to the gym today, you’re not going to the gym today. You’re going to sit at home and relax.’ I just couldn’t do it.”

Dubbed the ‘gym rat’ in high school, Wallace made a name for himself from his tireless work ethic. He was the first one in and last one out, every time. Even at Wenatchee, Harden would have to come into the gym at 10 p.m. and drag Wallace out and tell him to go home. After long road trips to play in Oregon, Wallace would get off the team bus and go directly into the gym and start shooting

That mentality was borne from always being the underdog.

“I’ve heard my whole life, ‘You’re too small, you’ll never play college basketball, you’re not quick enough,’” Wallace said. “I never really believed it.”

With two older brothers who made it a habit of roughhousing him, Wallace learned quickly that he would have to fight for anything he wanted in life. His dad’s side of his family is big on basketball and filled with 6-foot-5 to 6-foot-8 men. Wallace is one of the smallest men on that side of his family.

His brothers would never take it easy on him in the backyard court, which usually ended in a fight and Wallace crying. But they taught him if he wanted to play basketball and he wanted to be good, this is what it’s going to be like. So Wallace, lacking the physical traits, became a prolific shooter.

He tied the District 4 2B single-game tournament 3-point record with nine his senior year. He Also broke the previous tournament record of 20 3s set in 1992 by draining 24 3-pointers over a five-game stretch.  He sank 98 treys that year on 41 percent shooting from downtown.

But when he reached college in Wenatchee, he realized he could no longer rely only on his shooting. For the first time in his life, his shot wasn’t the difference maker. He needed a more well-rounded game. He needed a reset.

Since leaving the Apple Capital of the World in summer 2019, he’s been working out every day. He knew he’d return to a team eventually, he just didn’t know when and which one. All he knew is he wanted to improve his game and no longer an afterthought offensively. So he began poring over film. He wanted to know how smaller guards, like 5-foot-11 Markus Howard of Marquette, overcame their height and garnered success.

“I probably watch more film than a lot of kids my age,” Wallace said. “I spend most of my day just watching basketball.”

He coached fifth through seventh grade girls basketball at Winlock this past winter. Just in case that wasn’t enough basketball in his life, he also coached fourth and fifth grade boys basketball at Toledo.

“I couldn’t escape the sport,” Wallace said. “I love helping out everybody.”

He eventually found himself in a rec league game in Aberdeen this past fall. Before the game, Grays Harbor College men’s basketball coach Matthew Vargas said he wanted to talk to Wallace after the game. Wallace ended up going to two open gym sessions in Grays Harbor and watched a couple of the Chokers’ games before Vargas used his best John Calipari pitch and convinced Wallace to commit.

“He talked me into it,” Wallace said. “He has the most confidence in me as any coach I’ve ever had. That, to me, speaks volumes.”

Vargas and coach Harden from Wenatchee are good friends, so Vargas knew Wallace was the guy he needed to boost his program, Wallace said. It wasn’t from an athletic standpoint, it was from a leadership and work ethic stance.

And Vargas isn’t just banking on Wallace’s shooting, Wallace said, he’s most excited about how he talks on defense, how he gets his teammates into position just by how he moves on the court and how the offense flows around him. It’s the little things in college basketball that make the difference, something Wallace is beginning to understand.

“He’s a coach that’s going to fight for you to the end,” Wallace said. “His guys always want to play for him. They’ll run into a fire for him. I like that. That’s something I want to be a part of.”

The past year has allowed Wallace the time to reflect on what’s really important in life. Never knowing for sure if he’d ever get the chance to play on a team again, Wallace still watched game film all day, couldn’t shake his gym rat persona. For him, what’s paramount is the game of basketball.

“You know whether or not how much somebody loves the game when they don’t have anymore games to play,” Wallace said. “I knew I loved the sport and I wasn’t going to give up on it. I’ve never been able to escape it, no matter how hard I try.”