ALL-AREA BASKETBALL: SC's Taylor named coach-of-the-year

By News-Argus Staff
Published in Sports on March 24, 2017 9:59 AM

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By JUSTIN HAYES

jhayes@newsargus.com

SEVEN SPRINGS -- He talks openly about the first win, a 33-31 bit of seminal drama 10 years ago, like a friendly haunt.

An outlast-them-all bit of white-knuckle drama versus Triton High School, the tale could easily parlay as a feel-good movie-of-the-week.

Its details, after all, sing elevator-pitch if there ever was one.

The team he inherited at Western Harnett was a JV troupe of modest ability and barely-there coaching, and one who certainly knew very little of winning -- not that it was their fault.

The group, which included athletic-types, military-types, lost-as-all-get-out types and single-parent types, had been allowed to drift and flounder and fall between two curious cracks -- the crevice where being taught very little runs up one side and nothing at all down the other.

"They didn't win much," he said. "The guy who was there really hadn't invested a lot into it."  

So, he loved them as his own, and ably recalls with stunning clarity a volume of details from that first campaign -- including the third day of practice when a drill designed to promoted toughness nearly broke a kid's face and with it, his own heart.

Taylor Jones of Spring Creek High, the 2016-17 News-Argus All-Area Boys' Basketball Coach-of-the-Year, shakes his head at the thoughts of his initial outfit and manages a smile.

"I'll never forget it," he said. "Great kids."

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This year's group, a 22-7 sum of  interchangeable parts, was in a singular way a mirrored image of his first team -- tough.

Flashes of it appeared routinely in Landon Smothers, the point guard who seemingly plays every sport in the county save marbles and who speaks two languages fluently -- yes sir and no ma'am.

Smart tough.   

Jones also waltzed memory lane courtesy of Jamerion Dawson, Cam Jones and Dominique Morse, a talented trio who agreed to split many things -- primarily ego, numbers and touches -- to assure the Gators became their coach's fully-formed playoff vision.

That's sharing with family -- which can be impossibly tough.

Lastly, he waltzed with Najee Young, the charismatic senior sniper whose bold play, ceaseless confidence and alpha- swagger could make a rattlesnake blush.

That was, at times, tough love.

But together, like his first outfit, they were special that way.

They ground the stone in practice, forging hoop concepts to the tune of Jones' whistle and the blue-collar, non-verbal push of guys like Matthew Dupuy and Tahj Edwards.

They answered tests in real time, too, first on the road at Warsaw in January and three times at Calypso, securing SC's second Carolina 1-A tournament title in three years.

And when the playoffs began, the band didn't miss a beat.

The Gators smashed Ocracoke in a first-round runaway laugher, then slid past Perquimans in an O2-seeking thrill ride.

SC's dream of regional glory expired, however, in the third round at Southeast Halifax, when a 4-minute scoring drought in the opening six minutes cast its fate.

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When pressed for details about life inside the ropes of his program this year, Jones goes a touch quiet.

After a winding exhale, he talks in measured pace about the input and sacrifice of others -- specifically assistants Bryce Ficken and Troy Smothers -- as if he played a miniscule role in the season's evolution.

"Those two," he said with a careful nod, "have done things that nobody will ever know about or care about, frankly... and having that kind of help is invaluable."

There were other things, too, like the text message group that formed early in the season and has remained intact since. Through monumental wins, puzzling losses and moments otherwise, Spring Creek remained Spring Creek.

He recalls other sights as well, like his wife chasing their son along the south baseline at home games, the back-and-forth hysterics with his players on bus trips and his 100th victory in Seven Springs -- all moments he isn't likely to soon forget.

And maybe one he did.

At the dripping end of a two-hour, go-hard-or-go-somewhere-else practice on January 15 -- between the team's victory at James Kenan and ahead of its rivalry matchup with North Duplin -- the coach gathered his players in a round for their final message of the day.

"It's like I sent y'all in the text," he said. "Always grateful, never satisfied."  

That's Taylor Jones -- then and now, and likely always.