Central basketball coach Rick Rogers, center, addresses his players before their first practice since clinching a spot in the 2015 Class AA state tournament -- the first in 15 years -- with a double-overtime win over Livingston Academy on Tuesday.
“You’ll never find a better sparring partner than adversity.”
-- Walt Schmidt
The misfortune that clobbered Central’s basketball team earlier this season came with the swift destructive force of a sledgehammer, repeatedly bashing the Pounders over the head.
In quick fashion, coach Rick Rogers lost four Pounders – two torn ACLs, a torn meniscus and a broken tibia – to serious injuries that required surgery and ended each player’s season.
The Purple Pounders practically had their own M.A.S.H.
unit inside T.C Thompson Children’s Hospital at Erlanger.
“We started out with a 10-deep roster,” Rogers said. “We had five guys on the floor and five on the bench and there was little difference between the two groups.
“In less than two months I was at Children’s Hospital having to look four different kids in the eye and tell them their season was finished. That’s a hard thing to do. I had just gone through that with my daughter, Madison, and that was the toughest thing I’ve ever dealt with.”
On Nov. 20, 2014, sophomore point guard Chris Burns tore the ACL in his left knee during a freshman game five days before the Purple Pounders’ season opening varsity game against East Ridge.
On Dec. 5, 2014, junior Jerome Johnson, a back-up point guard, tore the ACL in his right knee during a game at Red Bank.
Less impactful was a stage 3 concussion suffered by starter Tre Tiller in that same game, forcing him to miss two weeks, but the Pounders won three of four games in his absence.
On Dec. 9, 2014, D. J. Baxter played in a junior varsity game without any practice after joining Rogers’ squad following the football season. He scored 16 first-quarter points against Hixson and then suffered a broken right leg.
A Division I football prospect, Baxter was treated for almost an hour on the court by paramedics and the game was eventually cancelled, giving way to boys and girls varsity contests.
On Jan. 16, 2015, Kevin McKenzie, a senior, sustained a torn meniscus in his left knee at Brainerd.
“All four guys were dribbling the ball, attacking the rim, when they got hurt,” said Rogers, in his 10th season as the Pounders’ head coach. “The sad part of it all was nobody touched them except for Jerome, who had his foot stepped on.”
Through it all, the adversity simply made the Pounders stronger and despite all the physical chaos and mental anguish, they won their first five games and seven of eight to open the 2014-15 campaign – the only loss was to District 6-AA rival Brainerd.
The Hamilton Heights Factor
The Pounders rolled into a Christmas tournament at Chattanooga State with a 7-2 mark, the second setback coming at the hands of McCallie by seven points four days before the tourney tipped off.
The Pounders beat Boyd-Buchanan, 66-46, in the opener and faced Hamilton Heights in the second round. The Hawks, ranked No. 3 in Tennessee by MaxPreps.com when their season ended, posted a 61-54 victory, but Central caught the fancy of folks who closely follow Chattanooga prep basketball by not backing down against the much taller Hawks, whose starting front line went 6-5, 6-6 and 6-11.
“That was one of the hardest teams in the country to play,” Tiller said. “They made us better and if we play like that at state, we can beat just about anybody.”
The Pounders’ performances over three days created a buzz around town and former players, current students and fans in general leapt on the team’s bandwagon.
Few, if any, have jumped off.
“Three former Central players – Wayne Standefer and Larry Hutson from the class of 1956 and Eddie Test from the class of 1958 – saw the Hamilton Heights game and I think they’ve been to every game since then,” Rogers said. “Ken Connelly (1959) and Jerry Summers (1959) have also been instrumental in our success in terms of support as fans and monetarily, something that will help us buy new uniforms next year. We’ve got one guy (Derick Moody, who now goes by his father’s last name, Aye) who’s hoping to come in from Arkansas for the tournament.”
Aye, reached by telephone between flights at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport earlier in the week, recalled the 2000 Pounders as one of the best teams in Central history – the Pounders’ lone state title came in 1943 and they finished runner-up in 1924, 1945 and 1958, according to TSSAA records.
“I remember a lot about that 2000 season,” said Aye, then a senior and four-year starter for the Pounders. “We won a ton of games, were ranked as high as No. 3 in the state and had some really good players on that team. Cory Wade was probably our best player. We didn’t play our best game at state, so I hope these guys do a lot better than us.”
Aye, 32, now a senior merchandise manager for consumer electronics at the WalMart headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., said he’s not sure he’ll be able to attend the Ripley game, but if the Pounders reach the championship round on Saturday he hopes to be in the stands.
Aye said he was in Chattanooga a year ago visiting friends, his former coach Bill Nelms and Rogers, an assistant on Nelms’ staff. Rogers told him this year’s team had the potential to make the state tournament field and he has been keeping up with the team through press reports, texts and Facebook posts.
“They beat Brainerd a couple times this year and that’s something we couldn’t do when I was in high school,” Aye said. “I really want everyone to know there’s someone in Bentonville, Ark., cheering them on.”
After a sterling 71-55 win over Brainerd for third place in last December’s holiday tournament, the Pounders beat East Ridge on Jan. 9 and then lost at Brainerd, 78-47, on Jan.16.
They haven’t lost since.
Dumping The Spectator Tag
Now riding a 12-game winning streak, including wins over Brainerd for the district and Region 3-AA championships and a beat-all-the-odds 75-72 double overtime thriller against Livingston Academy in the Class AA sectional, the team’s fourth game in five days.
That victory earned Central (22-4) a spot in the boys’ state tournament quarterfinals against Ripley (29-11) on March 12 – the Pounders’ first state appearance since 2000 and just the second trip in 55 years.
“Our kids refused to lose that Livingston game,” said Rogers, who has been at Central 25 years. “There was Livingston with fresh legs, fresh brains, fresh eyes just picking us apart early, but we kept making plays to keep it a one-possession game and finally pulled it out.”
Fans wonder how the Pounders managed to do that.
“We were gassed,” junior jumping-jack Ryan Montgomery said before the Pounders’ Friday practice at McKenzie Arena on the Tennessee-Chattanooga campus. “But we had heart, man. It takes heart to win a double-overtime game. We did all the dirty work and came out on top.”
For the past two years, Rogers has taken his players – they were simply spectators – to the state tournament and both trips served as eye-opening experiences.
About a month ago, he addressed his players in routine fashion, but threw a different spin on the subject matter.
“I asked them what I had done for them the past two years?” said Rogers, who answered his own question by saying, “I took you guys to the state tournament.
“Then, I said, ‘I’m not taking you this year.’
“They said, ‘What do you mean?’
“And I said, ‘I’m not taking you. You have to take yourselves.’
“That immediately motivated the guys. Someone said, ‘That’s a cool deal.’
“Terron spoke up and said, ‘Coach has taken us for two years, we’ll take him this year.’ ”
With the catastrophic injuries and Tiller’s concussion behind them, the Pounders return to the big TSSAA basketball stage at the “Glass House,” Middle Tennessee State University’s Murphy Center, with the spotlight about to shine squarely on them at 4:30 p.m. CST next Thursday.
Earlier that same day, Brainerd (22-7) has a tough assignment against top-ranked Christ Presbyterian Academy (31-4) at 1:15 p.m. CPA lost to Jackson South Side, 59-57, in last year’s semifinals after claiming back-to-back championships in 2012-13, posting identical 37-2 records both seasons.
Finding That Extra Oomph
Rogers purchased his players new shoes – purple Nike Hyperdunks – prior to the postseason starting and Central has won six straight games using the new footwear, three in win-or-go-home situations.
“The kids love them because their old ones were about worn out,” Rogers said.
The Central community is solidly behind the Pounders and Rogers said students already have gobbled up enough seats to fill five buses for the 200-mile round trip to Murfreesboro for the Ripley game.
Rogers has been deluged with congratulatory texts, e-mails, phone calls and well-wishes on Facebook from Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Florida and Arkansas.
“It has been great,” Hayes said. “All the teachers and students know we’re going to state and they’re making announcements during school about it. A lot of students are going to the game and that’s good. I like our student section because they keep us hyped.”
After capturing the district championship, with a harrowing 60-59 win over the rival Panthers, the Pounders opened the weather-plagued Region 3-AAA tournament with a 70-58 victory against host Loudon on Feb. 27. A day later, Central beat Red Bank, 71-58.
Following an off day Sunday, the Pounders knocked off Brainerd – it was the rivals’ fifth meeting of the season – by 53-44 for the region title that ensured Rogers’ team a host role for the all-important sectional game played the next day.
With Livingston Academy battling bucket-for-bucket, Central found a hidden cache of oomph in the overtime periods and managed to pull out the team’s most important win in 15 years.
“We were staggering around, but still got out of there with a win,” Rogers said. “It was just amazing. Physically, I didn’t know how they could do it. With a seven-man rotation, nobody was getting much rest. We just tried to hang around and make something special happen in the fourth quarter.
“The first three quarters were like an NBA game, although we weren’t getting paid, that didn’t mean much. Terron said, I think we were in the locker room after the game, this is the stuff movies are made of.”
A Rodney Benford 3-pointer gave the Pounders a 47-35 lead late in the third period, but the Wildcats cut their deficit to five points heading into the fourth quarter.
Livingston went ahead, but Tiller made a layup with 10 seconds to send the game into overtime.
In the first overtime, Benford’s free throw tied the game at 65-all to force the second extra period.
A Benford 3 gave Central a 70-69 lead, Montgomery followed with a three-point play. Benford’s two free throws in the final 15 seconds, the last with 4.8 ticks on the clock, sealed the 75-72 win.
“Before the overtimes you could see fatigue setting in when we started missing our free throws, we weren’t finishing layups and we started making dumb mistakes,” said Benford, a junior.
How did the Pounders survive the extra 10 minutes of action?
“Somehow we found some energy,” Benford said.
The 72-Year Drought
Now, the Pounders are back in the state tournament, three wins from claiming the school’s second title.
So, call Angelo Pizzo and David Anspaugh, who wrote and directed the 1986 basketball movie classic “Hoosiers.” See if Gene Hackman has one more coaching role in him. Find someone to play the role of “Shooter,” the downtrodden alcoholic assistant coach portrayed brilliantly by the late Dennis Hopper, whose supporting performance earned his only Oscar.
Close your eyes and imagine.
Theater lights dim.
Over in the corner, a light from a cell phone breaks the darkness (well, that’s what you have to put up with these days).
Those in the audience can hear basketballs bouncing off the court in a small high school gym in a small community on the county’s north side.
After 90 minutes or so of teams launching 3-point bombs at each other, a celebratory scene fills the screen. Another feel-good story comes to a climax when the little guys beat a stronger and heavily favored opponent.
That script hasn’t been written, though.
It still is a dream for Central. If it comes to fruition next week, it would be the school’s first title in 72 years.
“Pounder Pride” might be an appropriate for the film.
But, make no mistake. Rogers’ Purple Pounders face the same long odds that Hickory High overcame in “Hoosiers.”
In the other quarterfinal game Ripley and Central, is the matchup between Creek Wood (33-1), whose lone loss was to CPA, and Fulton (26-4), which comes into the tournament having won 23 of its last 25 games.
Creek Wood is the state’s top scoring team, averaging 86 points per game.
Still, Rogers doesn’t believe his players will be awed when they hit the court next week – not by the setting and not by Ripley’s Tigers, who lost four times this season to rival Haywood County.
When asked what he knows about Ripley, Rogers said, injecting an affinity for levity, “It’s on the other side of Nashville.”
What he does know is what a marvelous season the Pounders have kept alive with strong efforts down the stretch.
“This has been such a fun ride,” Rogers said. “I’m happy to have the pleasure of coaching these guys and I can sum them up by saying they have a care-free love for each other and the game. Basketball is what brought all of us together, but it’s more than that.
“I told them after the Livingston game that I just watched a bunch of young guys become men. Regardless of what happens next Thursday, it has been a magical season. We’re going back to state and I’m glad this time we get to take our (basketball) shoes with us.”
(E-mail Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @larryfleming44)
The Purple Pounders have worn new Nike Hyperdunk shoes, this one displayed by freshman Brett Abshire, throughout the postseason and have won six straight games, victories that led Central to the Class AA state tournament.