College Tryouts

Since I haven't been too successful at coming up with non-basketball stories, I'll start on basketball stories again.

After my senior season was over there was very little prospect of me playing college basketball but I was invited to two tryouts, East Texas Baptist College in Marshall and Hill Country Junior College in Hillsboro. I was invited to ETBC because of Ken ? whose wife was the ETBC President's daughter. He had seen the first half of the game against Sam Houston at EHHS when I scored 17, didn't miss a shot from the field, and made a nice move and layup on a 1 on 2 fastbreak. The invitation to Hill was really a blanket invitation to everyone on our team.

I went to ETBC first. The tryout day was on a Saturday and Gary and I drove down Friday afternoon. That evening I went down to the gym and played with some of the guys that were trying out and some of the current ETBC players. I came away convinced that I could help this team and thought I'd do well the next day.

They had a big 6'9" black guy, Nathan Hollis, from Gilmer, TX who was a center for the varsity. I hit him with so many good quick passes off drives for easy layups, it was incredible. The only problem was, he dropped most of the passes. The coach said they were good passes but Nathan wasn't used to getting passes that were that quick.

There was also a kid (Frank?) there from a small school in Many, Louisiana. He was a class A All-State player in LA and was a 6'2" guard. He was an excellent shooter with a terminal case of acne. He ended up with a full 4-year scholarship to ETBC. He was a really nice guy but not too smart. There was another kid, 6'3" guard from around Houston that ended up at Jacksonville Junior College. And, the only other guy I remember was a small 5'10" guy from Indiana who was a starting guard for ETBC as a freshman.

The tryout consisted primarily of several full court scrimmages. I played tremendous defense, stuffing the freshman starter and stealing the ball often from the 6'3" guy from Houston. The only problem, I couldn't make a shot to save my life. I even missed an uncontested layup after I'd stolen the ball at mid-court from the 6'3" guy.

I knew I could play for this team. I was better than the freshman they had starting on the varsity and was as good as any other guard there, at least in my mind. I didn't get a scholarship offer but was encouraged to play as a walk on. They gave scholarships to guys from small schools (class A and B, now class 2A and 1A) that had made All-District or better. If you didn't make All-District you must not be good enough, even if you had played in a much higher (4A now 5A) and tougher competition class of basketball. A guy I met later at ETBC said the coach had a "big school complex" and wanted to be able to say he had recruited all these All-District abd All-State players, even if they were from tiny schools and not as good as guys who went to big schools but didn't make All-District. They also signed guys who played another sport besides basketball. Some of the 2-sport scholarships included golf, track, abd baseball. I only did basketball. Although I had run a 4:39 mile I didn't want to run track.

Several weeks later was the Hill JC tryout. I drove down to Hillsboro after school and arrived a little late. I was the last guy there and they had a 10,000 people who had showed up to tryout. Really, there were probably about 60 or so, too many to get a good look if they didn't know you. The only person there that I knew was Owen Barnett from Sam Houston. Owen had been All-District and averaged about 25 points a game.

We did a bunch of one on one drills and I was great. I was making shots, beating guys on the dribble, and really doing well. I even had great jump that day. On one drill I beat my guy, drove for the layup, and laid it in. I was so high on the layup that I actually hit my elbow on the backboard. When we broke up into teams for the scrimmages it was obvious who they intended to really look at by the team you were put on. I ended up on a team with Owen that had 5 guards. The team we played had 6'3" black kid who had played center in high school, a forward and 3 guards. Since I was the tallest guy on my team I had to play center. Like I said earlier, I had great spring in my legs that day, and I won the tip.

If I had played as well at ETBC as I played at Hill I would have gotten a scholarship to ETBC. At Hill I simply didn't have a shot. Owen was invited back for another tryout after his coach called Hill. With his awards and track record, he deserved a legitimate shot. He ended up playing there 2 years on scholarship.

I also talked with a representative from Houston Baptist who said they'd give me an academic scholarship that would cover 50% of my tuition and I could walk on, but 50% there was more money than 100% at ETBC. Besides, I knew I could play at ETBC and decided to go there. I cancelled my dorm room reservation at Texas Tech, a fact I'm sure makes Ben happy, and enrolled at ETBC.