The longer I hang around here, the more I realize how much of a treasure the Augusta area sports scene is.
Both current and potential treasure.
As far as the potential part goes, it’s time to appreciate what we have here and then push it to the next level.
Just this past week, we had what would’ve been a battle of two top prep schools with a couple of the best high school basketball prospects in the country leading them when Brewster Academy and Prolific Prep met up.
Who are those top two prospects, you ask? Alabama bound Derrion Reid for Prolific Prep and Elijah Crawford of Brewster who’s headed to Stanford. Reid didn’t play due to an injury, but Crawford dropped 30 points in the high profile matchup.
As huge as that is, imagine how much of an Augusta-area showcase that would’ve been if Reid was able to play.
Travel over to Carrollton and an Olympic wrestling trailblazer in coach Donell Bradley was just a few matches away from leading her Greenbrier girls wrestling team to a duals state championship against Carrollton at the University of West Georgia.
This is major because girls wrestling is one of the fastest growing high school sports in the country, and your Greenbrier Lady Wolfpack firmly solidified itself as one of the state’s top programs. I hope others across the CSRA stopped long enough to pay attention to what Bradley is building, and I hope that they began to see where the budding passion and success for the sport doesn’t have to be isolated to just one school in our area.
Then, of course, we had our typical basketball frenzy where Thomson and Westside boys reminded us why they’re likely the top two teams in Georgia in Class AA. They played to a standing room only crowd in Thomson this past Tuesday in their second regular season clash, and it didn’t disappoint.
Josey girls look poised to make another Class AA state title run. Butler boys and girls are both playing well, with the boys squad not missing a beat while sporting a head coach who isn’t Cervantes Boddy for the first time in well over a decade.
Sure enough, this is a basketball town, and with good reason. But perhaps it’s because the effort and energy poured into basketball is simply producing its fruit.
I saw a Facebook post earlier this week from Darrin Shine, the former Richmond Academy standout who went on to play college basketball at Delaware State, then came back home to the Augusta area to begin Shine Hoop Grind which is one of the top — if not thee best — basketball training program in the CSRA.
Reid, Crawford, Cross Creek’s Michaela Bogans, Westside’s Demarco Middleton and other standouts who are doing big things on the collegiate level right now have all come through Shine’s program or been impacted by his passion for Augusta-area hoops.
And Shine’s son DJ is a major college prospect himself, also playing out his senior year at Brewster Academy before making his way to Murray State. You’ll read more about him in the coming week.
So if anyone has a bead on why basketball is what it is here, it would be Shine. Anyway, I saw a Facebook post he made earlier this week where he listed “seven former college basketball players” who are coaching middle school ball in the CSRA.
Kyle Doyle, Aubriana Bonner and Meme Bowman (Hornsby), Don Coleman and Aubrey McRae (Spirit Creek), Rod Hall Jr. (Belair Academy), Taylor Ayers (Glenn Hills), Walter Jackson, III (Paul Knox Middle), Decoy Mack (Glenn Hills) and Mia Nicole (Richmond Academy) are the names he listed.
“And six are in the playoffs,” Shine said in the post of the aforementioned coaches. “Makes me proud, the future is in good hands.”
When you have local basketball products who have gone away to garner their post-high school success and then come back to pour back into the hometown, you can’t help but to be successful. And to see a culture of success spread throughout the area.
It absolutely is. Basketball will be good in the Augusta area for the foreseeable future. Now, here’s what I want people in this area to understand: It doesn’t have to just be about basketball.
Athletes abound in the CSRA. Not just basketball. Not just football. There are high-level baseball products. Lacrosse is catching fire, particularly in Columbia County. You’ll find softball and volleyball standouts here and really, if you look hard enough, you’ll discover next level talent in just about any sport you can think of.
How does it go next level, though? By putting in that same energy, that same effort and passion into those sports as what gets put into basketball. Honestly, even just a fraction of an increase would pay off.
That’s how good the pool of athletes here is. That’s how much comprehensive athletic potential the CSRA contains.
I know there are logistical battles that have to be fought that are above the pay grades of the athletic departments in each individual school. And there are things that local school governments must do in order to truly make our schools competitive in non-basketball sports.
I say, not only can it be done, but it must be done. Otherwise, you cheat other athletes who have next-level potential out of experiences that can catapult them into fruitful careers in their sport — careers that extend beyond their playing days into coaching, tutoring and mentoring local student athletes.
Augusta is every bit the comprehensive sports town as any other place I’ve ever been. Sometimes, sadly, I feel like the city itself doesn’t even realize it. I’d like to see that change. And it starts with just plain old increased interest and awareness in the other opportunities athletics in this city can provide beyond just basketball and football.
Scholarship money is scholarship money. And if colleges will pay student-athletes to play tiddlywinks, then someone somewhere needs to figure out how to build the best high school tiddlywinks program possible with the available resources so as to pique the interest of new athletes and audiences and diversify this city’s athletic success.
We’re getting close to region tournament and state tournament time in basketball, and we’ve got several contenders. But even as the area’s prize sports option winds its season down, spring sports season is emerging.
Here’s a homework assignment for you: Dedicate yourself to learning a new sport during the non-basketball season. Learn it thoroughly. Particularly for those of you who may have elementary and middle school children, consider finding ways to introduce them to something new.
It may just lead to the awakening of a sleeping athletic giant — both in your child and in the Augusta community at large. This area is plenty big enough to be good at more than one sport. But it starts with our support and willingness to step outside of the basketball-only box.
Gabriel Stovall is the sports editor for The Augusta Press. He can be reached at gabriel@theaugustapress.com.
