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Monday, Jan. 29, 2018 | Indiana Daily Student | idsnews.com
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Freshman point guard Luke Brown, left, looks towards the court after talking with Blackford head coach Jerry Hoover during a game against Winchester Community High School on Jan. 13 in Hartford City, Indiana. Hoover called Brown to the bench several times during the game, saying that Brown needed to get them a bucket, Brown said.
A new hope An 83-year-old coach and a high school freshman have resurrected a team. By Jordan Guskey jguskey@indiana.edu | @JordanGuskey
HARTFORD CITY, Ind. — The kid’s name reverberates throughout the gym. Luke Brown, the freshman point guard, remains stoic through the pregame rituals. His face, so smooth and innocent it’s as if he just escaped from sixth grade, shows only concentration as he nails each practice shot from behind the arc. His knees are killing him, but he ignores the pain. The old man who brought Luke to this small town and to this unlikely moment in its history stands a few feet away, motionless by the bench. At 83, Jerry Hoover is hard of hearing, but he knows how much it would mean to the home crowd for Blackford High to win tonight. Like Luke, he knows better than to let his thoughts stray from tonight’s matchup. Coach Hoover and Luke, 16, came to Blackford together. A package deal, brought in to end the lingering misery of one the worst losing streaks in state history. Now, on this Friday night in January, the team is 8-1 heading into this game against Winchester Community High School. Hoover wants Luke to take his time, but when the moment comes, to take it. “Keep attacking,” he keeps telling him. “Put it on them.” On the first possession, Luke pushes up the court and heads inside toward the hoop, a Winchester guard shadowing him. Suddenly Luke stops, takes a step back behind the 3-point line to get free and shoots. As the freshman backpedals away, his eyes follow the ball arcing. The coach tracks it too. In years past, it was anyone’s guess if a shot would go in. Now it seems preordained. * * * For a long, long time, the Blackford High Bruins forgot how to win. Then the old man and the boy showed up. Something about the duo — youth and talent guided by decades of experience — has sparked a resurrection that almost defies description. “Surreal,” Luke’s mom called it. Before Jerry Hoover and Luke Brown arrived in Hartford City, the Bruins had won one game in three
“SPARKLING, FRESH AND LIVELY.” - Los Angeles Times
seasons. They had a 61-game losing streak that lasted from February 2014 to January 2017 — nearly an Indiana state record. The last time the team had a winning season, 16 years ago, its current upperclassmen were toddlers. Hartford City was enduring its own stretch of struggles too. Industry left. Jobs disappeared. More than a quarter of the town’s population vanished. Then last summer, Hoover called the high school with a proposition. “Hey, this is crazy,” he told Blackford High’s athletics director. “I’m an old man, and all I want you to do is hear me out.” The next morning Hoover was in Tony Uggen’s office offering to be the Bruins’ next head coach. The applicant was beyond qualified. He’d spent his life on a basketball court. As a six-foot-six walk-on, he’d played at Purdue in the 1950s and then gone into coaching high school. He had a history of turning around struggling programs and a gift for developing talent. At Ben Davis High, he coached Randy Wittman before Wittman helped IU win a national championship in 1981. At Logansport High, he’d coached Whitney Jennings — recognized as Indiana’s top female high school basketball player in 2014 — and led the team to a regional championship. But now he was in his 80s, and his white hair was thinning. He wanted to get back on the sideline, he told Uggen, but said the schools where he interviewed kept turning him away because of his age. “I don’t hunt, I don’t fish, I don’t play cards and I don’t play golf,” Hoover said. “I coach basketball.” And he wouldn’t come to Blackford High alone. He wanted his son Don, a former college basketball player, to serve as an assistant coach and take over if anything happened health-wise. Don’s son J.D.— Hoover’s grandson — would play his senior season for the Bruins. Luke, a distant relative, would move from Brownsburg with his family. The pitch sounded too good to be true. “What am I missing?” Uggen remembered thinking. “So we started making some calls, and I’ll be honest I had no idea who Jerry Hoover was. I feel stupid now, because as soon as he walked out I Googled him, and he pops up
“If you’ve ever had someone hit you with a hammer in the testicles, that’s how it feels. It’s a joyous occasion. Two years from now he’ll be fine.” Don Hoover, assistant coach
everywhere.” The package deal was built on three generations of Hoovers and Browns playing high school basketball together. Hoover and Luke’s grandfather, a prolific scorer who could knock down long-range shots just like Luke, were best friends and first cousins when they played together. Don played with Luke’s dad, Ted. And now Luke is playing for Hoover alongside J.D. As Hoover puts it, Blackford was a good fit. “Square peg, square hole,” he said. “Round peg, round hole.” When Hoover and his point guard showed up at the gym that fall, the team’s mindset transformed almost immediately. Luke played with a confidence that was contagious. Hoover preached fundamentals. That November, for the first time in more than a decade, the Bruins won their season opener. Then they won their second game. And their third. By January they were already closing on Hoover’s goal of 12 wins. The old man and the kid hesitate to overanalyze why the two of them work so well together. But the chemistry is undeniable. Luke responds well to Hoover’s even-keeled personality, and the coach’s respect for his point guard is obvious. “He’s just an All-American young man,” Hoover said. On defense, the freshman stays in front of his man but avoids committing reckless fouls. Averaging nearly 30 points a game, he’s third in the state in scoring behind two seniors — including Robert Phinisee, who will play for IU next year. Luke can hit shots from nearly anywhere on the floor, even half court. He can weave through a thicket of defenders on his way to the basket for a layup, pull up for a mid-range jumper and dish the ball to open teammates if the defense collapses on him. His spontaneous creativity is already drawing comparisons to NBA Hall of Fame guard Pete Maravich. Through it all, Luke’s coach towers by the bench, analyzing what’s unfolding, radiating calm. Everything about the man says he knows what he’s doing. * * * Only a few seconds remain in SEE HOPE, PAGE 5
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