Play now, rest later

DAWSON — It seemed like the worst idea in the world.

Take off your football pads, and then take off running up and down the basketball court.

Problems?

“Yeah, you just wanted to tackle them instead of guard them,” Nick Beaver said.

That part was easy.

“The hardest part was being so sore from football. I was so sore I could barely move the next day,” said Riley Davis.

But the real trick was learning how to breathe.

“Ooh,” began Caleb White, “that was hard, real hard. The first time I ran down the court I was puffing pretty bad.”

Beaver, Davis and White are three of the eight Terrell Academy hybrids, the rarest of Eagles, who won a football state title this fall, then took off running — literally.

Somehow, through all that huffing and puffing, and all those aches and pains, the Eagles ripped off the best start in boys basketball in the school’s history: A 10-0 sprint out of the gate that defied logic and had everyone in the GISA talking about the kids from Dawson.

Of course, they finally hit the wall Tuesday in a loss on the road against Fullington, but they’ll be talking about that 10-0 start for years on Pecan Street in Terrell County.

“A lot of people who were at the school before, former coaches and people like that, were talking about the 10-0 start,” Beaver said. “Everybody who used to play here was talking about it. We knew the school record was 9-0, because everyone involved with the basketball team knew it.”

And everyone also knows the team that jumped out to the original 9-0 record start went on to win the only boys basketball state title in the school’s history. Those were the 1982 Eagles, who won it all long before any of these players were born.

Now the ’82 team and the 2010 team seem to be hooked at the hip — at least for now. No one expected this kind of season from this group.

Well, no one except the players themselves.

“They didn’t have much time to think about it,” Terrell Academy boys basketball coach Rundy Foster said.

About 24 hours, to be exact.

The Eagles won the state football title on Friday night, took Saturday off, practiced Sunday and Monday, and opened their season the next day with a Tuesday night game against Tiftarea.

“We had two practices and then started the season. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone,” said Foster, who basically had to wait for the football season to end before he had enough players to even field a team. “We really couldn’t practice until then, because I had only five kids and three of them were freshmen. Eight of our players were on the football team.”

Four of the eight are starters: Beaver (a defensive end/tight end turned forward), Davis (a receiver/place kicker/ defensive back turned guard), White (a receiver/cornerback turned point guard) and Jonathan Farr (a tight end/lineman turned post player). The sixth man is Levy Griffin (a linebacker turned post player).

Nothing was easy about the quick turnaround.

White was winded after his first trip up the court in the opener, and by the time he was bringing the ball up for the third time that night, his teammates were shouting at him.

“They were all saying ‘Slow down! slow down!’ ” White said.

Even now at full speed, the Eagles aren’t exactly a breakneck group. They average less than 50 points a game, but they’re holding opponents to only 29 points per game.

“We’re physical and play good defense,” Beaver said.

But that doesn’t explain everything about this team’s success.

“They surprised me the way they came out of the blocks and played so well,” Foster said. “But I’m not surprised now. I didn’t take into consideration how much they want to win. I don’t have to push them that much. They push themselves. These guys have a lot of that ‘I don’t want to lose’ attitude. They’ve had so much success. It carries over. It’s contagious.”

The hybrids have not only been a part of back-to-back football titles at Terrell Academy, but they have also been pretty spoiled on the basketball court, too.

Last year’s team was the best in years, reaching the Elite Eight in the state tournament, and the core group of seniors on this year’s team rarely lost coming up the ranks. This year’s senior group played together on the “B” team for three years and that squad lost just one game in three seasons.

“We’ve been playing together so long, and we know each other so well,” Davis said. “We just kind of clicked right off the bat this year.”

It’s the kind of chemistry that comes only with time.

“Yeah,” Beaver said. “We have a good feel for where everybody is on the court, because we have played together so long. That’s why we play so well together.”

Foster has a couple of other reasons why his team is so difficult to beat.

“We have good players, not great players, but they all work hard,” he said. “We have to work harder than the other team. The other thing is that you can’t key on anybody on the offensive end. Out of my top eight players I can put anybody on the floor and not miss a beat. That’s one thing that I like about this team.”

No one is averaging more than 10 points a game for the Eagles, even though Davis did have a breakout night in the loss to Fullington, scoring a season-high 19 points.”

“We don’t have anybody with an 11-point average,” Foster said. “We’ve got at least three players scoring between eight and 10 points a game, and everyone does their part to contribute.”

The next step for Terrell Academy?

That’s easy: score more points.

“Our goal is to win the region and make a run at state,” Beaver said. “If we can get the offense to start putting up more points I think we can make a run at state. This year’s team plays harder as a team. We know what we’ve done (with the 10-0 start) and no one wants to mess it up. We all want to make a run at state.”

If they don’t, it won’t be for lack of desire.

“Last year, we were just hoping to win, but not this year,” Davis said. “I think we just want it more.”