Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 10, 1994 TAG: 9402100261
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By BOB TEITLEBAUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BEDFORD LENGTH: Long
\ Todd Brookshier remembers when he was a freshman and Liberty High School opened its varsity basketball season with a victory over William Campbell.
"I thought we were really going to have a good team that year," said Brookshier, now the Minutemen's point guard. So did shooting guard Craig Coleman and 6-foot-5 Dave Ross.
It didn't turn out that way. After beating William Campbell 67-62 to start the 1990-91 season, Liberty lost 19 in a row and didn't qualify for the Seminole District tournament.
Those three key players, who were freshmen playing junior varsity basketball, are members of the National Honor Society. Obviously they're smart, but they didn't get a good read on that season.
As seniors, they're part of this season's Liberty basketball team that rose to fourth in the Group AA Associated Press state poll and second in Timesland last week. The Minutemen won 11 of their first 12 games before stumbling at tough county rival Jefferson Forest and losing 70-61 last week.
The Minutemen, now 13-2 after winning their next two games, have come a long way since 1990-1991. Brookshier, Ross and Coleman will be going out as winners. Ditto senior Bruce Jacobs, a 6-6 post player who just missed being the fourth senior to make the National Honor Society while leading Liberty's balanced scoring attack with a 13.3 average.
It's been eight years since the Minutemen last enjoyed a winning season, going 16-5 in 1985-86. If Liberty, which is tied with Appomattox for first in the Seminole District, takes the title, it will be the Minutemen's first league crown since 1976.
"I didn't know we'd be ranked that high," coach Mark Hanks said of the polls.
"The way the district lined up, though, we had aspirations of being among the top three or four teams. The kids felt good about themselves, which is important."
Success hasn't turned the heads of the Liberty players.
"The rankings are nice, but they don't mean anything right now," Coleman said. "What means the most are district titles and how far we go after the district."
Said Ross, "I knew we'd be competitive before the season. I didn't think we'd go 11-1."
Maybe the hesitancy on the part of the three players to accept success comes from what happened when they were freshmen. Hanks was then in his second season as Liberty's coach, trying to rebuild the program.
"Anybody going 1-19 would have a little self-doubt," said Hanks, who had been an assistant at Pulaski County before moving to Liberty.
"The biggest thing that helped me through that year was those kids played their hearts out. We just didn't have enough depth and hadn't played enough basketball.
"After we played our last game at Appomattox, the kids came into the dressing room crying. They wanted to play some more. They didn't want to get the season over and go into spring sports.
"Even that year, we weren't awful. We were very competitive. Look at the scores. Only a few times did we get blown out of games. We were right there at the end a lot of times."
Out of the rubble of 1990-91 came the current team. Brookshier, Coleman and Ross learned as freshmen there would be a price to pay for success.
"In a way, we didn't know how to win when Coach Hanks came here," Brookshier said. "We'd let up in the fourth quarter. Both years before now we've been about .500. We've won some close games, lost some close games."
Coleman tries to forget that 1990-91 season.
"It's been a long time and I felt sorry for that team," said the 6-foot guard. "At the time, though, we were the worst team in the district. It gave us the incentive to work harder. Everyone looked down on us then."
Now it's a different problem. People are starting to take notice, though the weeknight games still aren't sellouts.
"I go to church and people will ask about the team," Hanks said. "I'll go to a recreation league game to look at kids and people will come up to talk. When I went to recreation games a couple of years ago, it could be pretty frosty in the gym."
That's because Liberty still didn't win consistently in 1991-92, when the Minutemen were 8-13, or last season, when they finished 9-12.
"When we were freshmen, people told us we'd be pretty good one day," Brookshier said. "They said that when we were sophomores and when we were juniors. All of a sudden we realized we wouldn't have another year [after this one] to be together again."
Five Liberty players are averaging 10 points or more per game. Besides Jacobs, sophomore Greg Reynolds, Coleman, 6-4 junior Stephen Shrader and Ross are helping the Minutemen put a lot of points on the board.
"We play 10 people and I don't recall any of my teams having this kind of depth," Hanks said. "Reynolds leads us in minutes played, with 21 [a game], but we kept 14 kids this year on the team. That's more than usual, but we have a lot of seniors and I wanted to try to get some kids ready for next year."
The most underrated player on the team might be Brian Long, a junior who hasn't scored much.
"He won't show up on a stat sheet, but he leads us in floor burns," Hanks said. "Other coaches in the league might not recognize him, but our team does for playing good defense.
"We don't have a lot of I's. This team gets along well together. They're high school kids who are pretty consistent in what they do."
Except for the first time in a long time Liberty has discovered the formula for winning basketball games.
by CNB