A Magical Season

In 1968 high school basketball was king in Altha, Florida, a panhandle town of less than 400 people. With twenty students in the senior class, there wasn't a bumper crop of boys--which likely had something to do with me making the team. I'd never played organized sports when I enrolled at the school in my junior year, but ever since I experienced my first "runner's high" at the age of fourteen, I loved to run.

Coach Darryl Taylor taught me the fundamentals of basketball that included how to set a screen, the pick and roll, and running the fast break. But that only scratches the surface of his education.

The Altha Wildcats were an undersized team, even for a Class C school. Our point guard and center stood five-foot-six and five-foot-eleven, respectively. Lamar Edenfield was our shooting guard and a gifted athlete. In order for him to play on the team, on game days he had to work for his father's pulpwood business. After cutting down and loading pine trees all day, he suited up for the games and averaged thirty-six points during the season.

As good as Lamar was on the basketball court, it was Coach Taylor who made us a competitive team, and he earned our respect in a most unconventional manner. In our thirty-game season, I never saw him lose his temper or berate his players, even when we were trounced by a team we had beaten earlier in the season. Whereas other coaches "coached" from their benches during games, Coach Taylor reserved his coaching for our afternoon practices. On game nights, he let us play the game on our own. As a result, we came together as a team.

At the start of the 1967-1968 season, I was the backup center. By midseason I had moved up to the starting lineup. Even though we were a "small" team, we played as a cohesive unit, and our athleticism played to our advantage against bigger teams. Coach Taylor surely knew this, because he had us run the fast break and wind sprints at every practice.

At the end of the season, the Wildcats' record was fifteen wins and fifteen losses. It was the first non-losing season in the history of Altha basketball, and for the first time, we qualified to play in the district tournament. By the skin of our teeth, we advanced to the championship game against our biggest rival, the Grand Ridge Indians.

No one with a brain in his head gave us much of a chance of winning the game, but brains have less to do with success in basketball than desire, hard work, and a love for the game. It must've been a comical sight to see me--a 155-pound beanpole--guarding our opponent's center, who outweighed me by a hundred pounds. I don't remember much about the game, other than we won the game by five points, but I'll never forget what happened after the game.

Both teams were lined up along the baseline, facing a podium. When the Grand Ridge principal handed the second-place trophy to the Indians' captain, he called for the Altha captain. When Lamar walked up to the podium, the Grand Ridge center stepped out and elbowed him in the chest. Without so much as a flinch, Lamar wheeled around and got in his face. Spectators stormed the court as the coaches separated the players. When order had been restored, an Altha alumnus and former Wildcat said to our team, "It's okay, boys. We got the brass."

In the semifinal game of the regional tournament, we took the court against the Havana Bears--a team that had beaten us by twenty-five and twenty-six points during the regular season. The Bears' center and forwards towered over us, and once again, no one gave us a chance of winning the game--that is, no one except the Altha Wildcats and Coach Taylor. We had nothing to lose at this point, so pressure wasn't a factor.

For the first time that season, Coach Taylor didn't make any substitutions for the starting lineup during the game. The Altha Wildcats must've experienced a collective runner's high, because we ran the fast break all night and hustled back on defense. We could have run all night. At the final buzzer, the game was tied. At the end of the overtime period, the game remained tied. In the double-overtime period, with five seconds left on the clock, we were down by one point when Coach Taylor called a time out. After telling us how proud he was of our effort, he called the last play: "Gregg, make the inbounds pass to Lamar at half court. Lamar, take the last shot."

Lamar took a jump shot at the top of the key with three seconds on the clock. The ball was in the air when I moved in front of my defender and used my butt to create some space under the basket. The ball bounced off the back of the rim and ricocheted off the backboard. I got the rebound and gave a quick head fake before I took the shot. The ball kissed off the glass and fell through the net. The referee under the basket signaled the basket counted, but the other referee waved off the shot, saying time had run out before the ball left my hands.

We had lost the game by one point, but I knew better. The magical season ended that night, but it was just the beginning for me.

Twenty years later, I coached my son's basketball team in a youth league. It was during that experience that I realized the full effect of Darryl Taylor's coaching style that went far beyond basketball. He had earned our respect, and that had been a driving force that made us want to win for him as much as for ourselves.

In my son's first season, we lost every game. Four years later, when we won the Beach League championship, I got to speak to my players during the trophy presentation. I told them how proud I was for their hard work and teamwork, then I added, "Truth be known, I was even more proud of you when you lost every game that first season, how you never hung your heads in defeat and always looked forward to the next game." It was as though I was parroting Coach Taylor when I added, "As you all know by now, basketball isn't about winning and losing; it's about teamwork and the love for the game."

In 1998, Altha Public School honored the 1968 Wildcats in our school gym. Coach Taylor introduced his players, and told the story of our championship game at the regional tournament. Then he turned to me and said, "Your shot was good."

For this Wildcat, that magical season never really ended.

© Copyright 2025 Nathan B. Childs. All rights reserved.