ATHLETE OF THE WEEK
Male Athlete of the Week shaped by the work no one else sees
By: Sean Farrell / NorthJersey.com
Andrew Del Rey
Sport: Basketball
School: Waldwick
Class: Senior. Age: 18
Accomplishment: Del Rey led Waldwick to a 2-0 start by scoring 21 points against Hasbrouck Heights and 31 at Becton.
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The last ones in the gym know the sound.
The echo of a ball bouncing long after practice ends, the steady rhythm of a shooter who refuses to leave. At Waldwick, that sound almost always belongs to Andrew Del Rey.
Some nights it’s the janitor who finally shuts off the lights. Other nights it’s a youth team waiting for the court. And for a few years, when Greg McBain coached girls basketball at Waldwick, it was him.
“I’d have to kick him out,” McBain said. “He never wants to leave.”
That part hasn’t changed now that McBain is in his first season coaching the boys. Del Rey is a senior, a three‑year captain and the centerpiece of a Warriors team that opened the season 3-0 behind his 25‑point average. He’s already at 1,574 career points and closing fast on the school record of 1,765.
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But the numbers only explain so much about Del Rey, the North Jersey Male Athlete of the Week, presented by HSS.
The rest comes from the habits he formed growing up. Many from his backyard court where he developed his outside shot.
“Inside my home isn’t my real home,” Del Rey said. “Out there is.”
During tryouts this year, McBain put his team through “five minutes of hell,” a full‑court suicide shuffle with hands raised the entire time. It’s meant to test conditioning and toughness. By the time the whistle blew, players were gasping for air. A few had thrown up. Practice was over.
Del Rey stepped forward anyway.
“Get on the line,” he told teammates. “We’re going more.”
Del Rey has been doing that for three seasons – pushing teammates to find that extra gear. After practice, he’ll shoot until something feels right. Not a set number of makes, but a feeling in his hands.
“I think the best time to put in more work is when you’re tired,” Del Rey said. “It gets you mentally tougher. It gets you physically tougher. It gives you an edge over every other team.”
McBain sees that edge every day at Waldwick, but there’s another version too, as McBain discovered one recent Saturday night.
Waldwick had scrimmaged Mahwah earlier that day, falling behind by 13 at halftime and losing 75-66. The game stuck with Del Rey and followed him home.
“I don’t even take my uniform off after a game,” Del Rey said. “I sit there and think about it. Figure out what to improve, what could have been done better, what was done well.”
So around 8:30 or 9 p.m., sitting in his kitchen, the scrimmage still fresh in his mind, Del Rey texted his coach. Not to complain. To offer adjustments – tweaks to the offense, defensive ideas, ways to better fit the personnel around him.
McBain had never had a player do that.
“I’m like, I was not like that, I didn’t have that mentality,” said McBain, another member of Waldwick’s 1,000-point club. “If he was 6-foot-0, he’d be a Division I guard. He’s that good and that hardworking.”
Del Rey checks in at 5‑7, although he might try to convince you he’s 5‑8. That didn’t stop him in 2024, when he led all New Jersey sophomores in scoring, or last year when he finished with 25.3 a night. He was also a three-year starting midfielder on Waldwick’s boys soccer team, which won a sectional title this fall and a Group 1 state championship last season.
Soccer coach Jon Noschese jokes that during the fall, “you wouldn’t even know he played basketball,” because he’s so locked into the sport in front of him.
“Bottom line is I can’t recall coaching a kid who was more dedicated to the season and sold out to our program,” Noschese said. “Often I have to tell him to let your body rest because he’s all out in everything he does, including the classroom.”
Yet, basketball is never fully off his mind. The day after winning this year’s sectional title in soccer, Del Rey shot another text to McBain. The message? That’s not the only one we’re winning this year.
“This is my life,” said Del Rey, who’s drawn interest from TCNJ and FDU-Florham among others. “This is like my pride and joy, everything that makes me happy is basketball. So I want to enjoy my senior year as much as possible.”
