High School Boys Basketball Box Score

25 years ago, I was finishing up my first year coaching at Bradford, still green in ways I didn’t yet recognize, when just five miles down the road in Greenfield, another young coach was closing out his own first season. The distance between us was small, but in those days it felt like we were building our own separate worlds—worlds that collided in some pretty good Jr. High battles. By year three, we’d both climbed into head high school girls coaching jobs, and somewhere between the competition and games, Willie Trevathan went from being “the other coach” to a genuine friend.

We competed against each other, played a lot of pick-up hoops, then found ourselves on the same team in a few men’s leagues, and you could see a kind of competitiveness that not all possess. Even back then, you could see something set apart in him. While I showed up to work in ball shorts and T-shirts, Willie carried himself with a kind of quiet intention—shirt, tie, and a sense that he was already becoming the coach he was meant to be.

Not long after, he proved it. A state championship with the Greenfield girls (really two). Somewhere along the way, he even found time to coach a 5th-grade AAU team—one that my daughter played on. To this day, she’ll tell you he was her favorite coach (and yes, that still stings a little since I coached her too, lol). He coached her hard—called her name so often you’d hear it echo even when she was on the bench—but that was exactly what she loved. He made the game feel important, every second of it.

Now here we are, ten years on, and not much has changed at the core. Willie is still coaching the same way—fully, loudly, relentlessly—and now he’s got Westview boys heading into the state championship game tomorrow. I picked them as the team to beat before the season ever tipped, and I reckon I’ll be digging out a blue shirt and pulling for the Chargers as they take on Chattanooga Prep tomorrow.

In my experience, fate tends to lean toward the ones who show up early, stay late, and pour themselves into the work. Willie has always been one of those guys.

So congratulations to Westview and Coach Trevethan. Go get one more Big Dub!

In the nightcap, Humboldt brought down undefeated Eagleville in the kind of finish that makes a gym feel smaller than it is, every breath held, every eye fixed on the rim. With five seconds left, Jakevious Graves rose up and buried a three that will live a long time in Humboldt talk, the shot clean and sure, the net snapping like a flag in a hard wind. Graves finished with 31 points and four steals, while Damion Taylor once again filled every column of the scorebook with 21 points, eight rebounds, and four assists, the sort of all-around effort that wins games this late in March.

Coach Abernathy has the Vikings moving with purpose on both ends of the floor, sharp and steady at just the right time of year, when good teams either find themselves or fall away. One more win and the Gold Ball comes home to Humboldt. Good luck, gentlemen — all of West Tennessee will be watching, and pulling for you.