When I go back to my hometown, you’d think people would know me from playing football at Georgia or the NFL. But more people in Roswell tell me they remember the basketball team we had in 1997.
We went down to Macon and won the state championship. The whole school was down there. We emptied out the town.
It wasn’t just the fact that we were a winning team. It was the fact that they saw us grow up.
We all played in the rec league together. Abe Smith was our big man. His dad, Robert Smith, was the first basketball coach I ever had. Scott Pohlman was our scorer in ’97. Scotty and I won the rec-league championships when we were 10. His dad still has a video of that game.
Once we got in high school, we all played AAU together. We were a close-knit group. It was more than basketball. It was relationships.
We didn’t look talented. We just understood basketball and knew how to play. I remember when we faced Carver-Columbus in the semifinals in Macon. They had guys 6-10 and 6-8. I could hear their fans saying they’re going to kill us. We looked like a golf team with me being the caddie. I was 6-2. Frank Schaefer, our point guard, was 5-7 on his tippy toes.
What made that team special is that we weren’t just playing for us, but for the city. How can you play for your city if you haven’t been a part of it? My dad went to Roswell High School. My uncles went there. I have a long lineage of family there.
I don’t know if you see that nowadays. Players go from school to school and do whatever they need to do to win. I call it the Yankees complex. People want to buy a championship.
Our fans had that sense of “he’s from where I’m from.’’ If players come from all over, you might enjoy watching them play, but you didn’t see them grow up.
Our fans saw us grow. I think that’s what made that team important.
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