City of Basketball Love

Owen McCue (@Owen_McCue)
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Ryan Betley sat in the stands at St. Joe’s Prep during Philly Live last month waiting for his time on the court.

In the meantime, he had a chance to watch his former high school coach Jason Ritter guide his team to a win, while catching up with Penn’s Nat Graham, one of his former college assistants..

The former Downingtown West and Penn standout hung up his playing sneakers after he finished his college career on the West Coast at Cal-Berkeley. In the last two and a half years, the sharpshooter has started another hoops journey, working his way up the area officiating ranks .

“That’s what’s great about it. You stay involved in the game, see a lot of people — every gym I go to for the most part I recognize someone from just growing up in the area and playing basketball along the way,” Betley said. 

Betley helped Downingtown West — then under Ritter (now at West Chester Henderson) — to a Ches-Mont title in 2014-15 and was named the league’s Player of the Year in 2015-16 before heading to Penn.

Despite missing the first nine games of his career due to injury, Betley was a starter as a freshman at Penn in 2016-17. He was the Quakers’ leading scorer as sophomore on the 2017-18 squad that won the Ivy League Tournament and went to the NCAA Tournament — the only time the Quakers have accomplished the feat in the last 16 seasons.

Betley ruptured the patellar tendon in his right knee during the team’s opener in 2018-19, but came back to average double figures in his final season at Penn and playing his graduate season at Cal, where he averaged 8.5 ppg. He had the opportunity to continue his hoops career professionally but decided against it.

“I actually got an agent and did the whole thing, kind of prepared for it, but at the end of the day the offers that I got I just kind of weighed them against starting the next chapter of my life and kind of just determined, I have a Penn degree,” Betley said.

“I really enjoyed my time there, but my body was banged up a little bit and the last thing I wanted to do — and this isn’t the right mindset so this is how you you know it wasn’t right for me — I just didn’t want to be hurt in another country and not know the language or anything like that. I think it was just a good time for me to stop the competitive basketball and I've been enjoying the next chapter. I still get to play every week and I get my fix that way.”

Betley is working in real estate private equity fundraising with a small firm based out of New York, JTP Capital. He’s been able to work remotely, living in the city and soon headed back to live in the Downingtown area.

He said he plays pick-up games at Penn every Saturday with a group that includes several former D1 players and that’s enough hoops for him at this point to satisfy his competitive appetite.

“Once a week, Saturday at 8 a.m. is good enough for me,” Betley said. “It’s fun to still get a run in and all that.”

Still got the jump shot that helped him can 221 triples during his college career? Yup.

“That doesn’t go away,” Betley said.

Betley began working towards becoming a referee right after his playing career ended. His father Rudy is a longtime official in the area, working mostly Ches-Mont games and sometimes games at Westtown.

Seeing people like Ritter, Graham and other people he’s played with and for or known through the basketball world is one of his favorite parts of the gig.

“I think it’s a great way to stay involved in the game outside of coaching,” Betley said. “Coaching is a traditional path after basketball to stay involved and I think it’s great, but my dad reffed growing up and it’s something I took from him and honestly I just needed something outside of work to stay involved and to do, so I picked up reffing and I’ve been enjoying it.”

Rudy helped Betley get in touch with the assignors to begin his foray into officiating, but he started from the bottom with elementary school girls and boys and has slowly been working his way up, reffing in the PIAA at the JV level last season. 

He said his background as a former area standout and D1 player have helped him earn respect. The games at Philly Live were a good chance to “work on his craft” as he tries to eventually join his father in the varsity ranks.

“My dad’s been doing varsity for I don’t even know how long. He’s been doing varsity for years, so he knows all the assignors and stuff, so I started with elementary school girls and boys and slowly worked my way up over the past couple years to hopefully reffing at varsity,” Betley said.