ETBC - part 2

The JV team at ETBC was made up of freshman and sophomores. There were about 12 players with all but two on some sort of scholarship. Some had a baseball/basketball scholarship or a golf/basketball scholarship, etc. Half were center/forwards and the rest guards.

Here are the descriptions of the players I remember. Frank was a 6'2" guard from Many, LA, a class A school. He was on a full scholarship and was a very good shooter. Bert West was a 6'3" guard/forward from a little town in Arkansas. He was a class B All State player and played center in high school. I think there were only about 10 boys in his entire high school. He was a great pure shooter and really nice guy. I think he is the basketball coach at ETBC now. Donny was a 6'3" guard from Pasadena, TX and a pretty good all around ball player. Joe Redfern was a big 6'4" center from Mt. Pleasant, TX, a 3A school. He was on a golf/basketball scholarship. He left after his freshman year and went to SMU. He is now a big insurance guy in Mt. Pleasant. The last starter was a sophomore black kid named Waymon. He was 6'3", a good rebounder and defender, physcially strong, but not a very good shooter.

The center/forward subs were my Gomer Pyle-like suite mate, a 6'7" skinny center from class A Grapeland, TX. He was a much better guitar player/Johnny Cash singer than he was a basketball player - poor shot, poor defender, awkward and slow. The other center was a 6'5" skinny black kid I think named Charles. He was a sophomore, extremely nice, but only an average ball player. The other forward was a 6'3" black kid, extremely muscled and great jumper who had never played on a school team. He was a fabulous athlete but not a basketball player. He was the other walk-on. There was one other guy that had been given a full scholarship. He was a 6'3" black center from Chicago. His coach had played at ETBC and recommended him. He couldn't handle the cultural differences. He was used to the big city and dating white girls. That was definitely not Marshall, TX in 1968, so he went home after a few weeks.

The subs at guard included a 6'2" sophomore from Indiana, an overall decent player, and a nice guy. There was also a guy named Easterling from another small school in Arkansas. He was 6'3" with big buck teeth and was on a track/basketball scholarship. I beat him in the 880 at the track meet, his specialty. He played guard/forward. The last guy besides me was a 5'9" black kid from class A Cushing, TX. He was a good jumper and agressive defensive player but an inconsistent shooter and ball handler. He was a baseball/basketball scholarship guy. Lastly, you had me, a 5'11" guard from a big school, the only one besides Donny. Of course, I thought I should have been starting.

Quite honestly, I wasn't a better player than the guys starting but I knew more about basketball. Some of these guys had never played any sort of zone defense, much less half-court or full-court zone presses, traps, etc. With me on the court I could direct them where they were supposed to be, so it made the team better.

A week before our first game we had a game-like scrimmage at Jacksonville Junior College. The 6'3" guard from whom I had stolen the ball several times during the ETBC tryout was playing for them. They also had a 7-footer. Late in the game I beat the guard at the top of the key and started down the lane. With the 7-footer coming toward me I stopped at the free throw line for a jump shot. I never got it off. The 7-footer hit his knee to my right knee as it was planted for the jump. I crumpled to the floor and had never hurt so badly.

They basically did nothing for my knee. No ice, no nothing. It swelled up overnight so badly I couldn't sleep. The next morning I was sent to a doctor. X-rays showed nothing torn so they drained my knee by sticking me with the huge syringe and drawing out the excess fluid. Even though I had been given a local anesthetic it hurt like heck every time he bumped the needle into one of the bones. I was given some crutches and told to stay off of the leg for a week. 25 year later I had surgery to remove a bone splinter that had calcified into an object the size of your little finger. I know it was from that injury.

The first game fell on the last day of the period I was supposed to stay off the leg, but I wanted to play anyway. So, I suited up and had my knee wrapped with tape and an ace bandage. We were playing Louisiana Tech. They were much taller than us and we stayed 8-10 points behind. The closest I got to the game was marking shots and turnovers on a clipboard until there was about 2 minutes to go in the game. We were down by 8 and the coach asked me if I wanted to play. I said "Heck yeah! I didn't suit up to do nothing."

I went in as the point guard. They were playing a man defense. We ran a motion offense with a set pattern. Obviously, after running it the whole game the defenders knew where we were supposed to go and started cheating there. I was supposed to pass it into the center, go into the center of the lane, and try to rub off the defender for a possible pass back and a jump shot on the right side, free throw line extended. I passed it in but, instead of going down the lane, I went directly to the shooting spot. My defender went where I was supposed to go and left me with an open 18-footer which I promptly swished. They missed there shot and we got the rebound. I was dribbling at the left side of the top of the key when I noticed the lane was open. Our center had moved over to the right of the lane at the free throw line to set up our offensive pattern. Instead of setting up the standard offense I quickly drove by my guy, down the lane, and laid it in. We had cut the lead to 4 with more than a minute to go. Their coach quickly called time out.

Up in the stands James Hoffpauir, my roommate, was sitting with a couple of his upper classmen friends in front of the sportswriter for the newspaper. "Where has this guy been all game?" the sportswriter asked. One of James' friends said, "He suffers from big school disease. He went to a 4A school and didn't make All District so he can't be as good as the 1A or B guys." The sportswriter had heard that before and just nodded his head.