Tag: #writing

Once a Brave, always a Brave

These 2024 Braves are a special bunch who are carrying the hopes of a school, an entire county and all those who have gone before them.

Writing is a funny thing. One can never be certain what will resonate with folks.

            In some ways, it’s akin to coming across a rain-filled ditch. You may have a good idea of what awaits, but you never really know if that first step is going to be free and easy to the other side or leave you underwater, gasping and spitting as you try to climb to the surface. 

            When I first started to put down the words Friday morning to the “Ghosts of Baker Field,” the work was fed by the very stark realization that it’s now 40 years since I played my final game of football. And as I’ve gotten older, the memories are more and more persistent, often tapping on my brain in the early hours just before dawn.

            I was quite surprised with the response. More than 1,200 visitors read the story and hundreds more liked and shared the article via Facebook with many offering kind comments that were most appreciated.

Former players from far and near, old and young, shared their memories of their final games and their lifelong bonds with their teammates. Family members told of how they were unsure of what to answer when their son, defeated and dejected after a season-ending loss, sprawled out on a patch of torn turf in some faraway town, looked up at them and asked, “What am I supposed to do now, Momma?”

            But the highest praise came from Union County head football coach Derek Johns who said he read the column right before the team took the “Brave Walk” down the hill at Baker Field Friday night, where later they would celebrate a dominant, mistake-free 43-21 win over Belfry that sends them on to the state championship game.

That comment really hit home.

            In a way, Johns allowed the ghosts of Baker Field into that locker room one more time when he shared those words. The Thin Twenty from 1972. The 1976 and 2008 teams that had stood exactly where they were only to come up just short. And the 5-6 team from 1984 of which I was a part of.

            “Once a Brave, always a Brave.” I heard that from so many.

            These 2024 Braves are a special bunch who are carrying the hopes of a school, an entire county and all those who have gone before them. They’re now 12-2 and will play for the Class 3A state title when they take on Christian Academy of Louisville next Saturday at the University of Kentucky’s Kroeger Field. 

This band of Braves has gone where no other Union County football team has ever gone before. They’ve already established their place in local lore. What awaits is a place in the state record books.

            But, perhaps most prominent in their minds, is the guarantee that they get the chance to lace up the cleats and put on the pads. They’ll pound their fists upon their teammate’s shoulder as they huddle at midfield, eyes locked, breath heavy. And, at the end, when the final horn has sounded, they’ll form a circle, take a knee and come together as a brotherhood one more time.

            You see: It’s just one more game.

            One more game.

Editor’s Note: Michael Banks was a member of the 1982, 1983 and 1984 varsity football teams at Union County High School. He is once a Brave, always a Brave.

They call him Coach

It wasn’t so much about wins as it was life lessons for Gerald Tabor.

It’s been 10 years and I still miss my friend

Editor’s Note: This story was originally published Tuesday, June 4, 2013. It’s being republished here on the 10-year anniversary of the passing of my friend, Gerald Tabor.

I awoke Tuesday morning. Logged into my Facebook account and my spirits instantly fell.

Gerald Tabor had passed away during the night.

Here in North Carolina, Gerald Tabor’s name means nothing.

He was a girls basketball coach and taught history at a medium-sized high school in rural western Kentucky, where coal is king and corn runs a close second. I grew up in this small town, attended his history class and swam at the community pool he helped oversee during the summers. After graduation and landing a job in newspapers, I spent many a nights in the stands watching his teams compete on the hardwood.

One very talented squad won a Kentucky state championship and featured a Miss Basketball. And there were several regional champions in there as well. But there also seemed to be far more teams that finished with records of 8-16 or 13-11 during those years he spent working the sidelines at the Union County High School gym.

In Kentucky, basketball reigns supreme. College basketball, especially the University of Kentucky, can be seen on TVs and heard on radios from Pikeville to Paducah. The University of Louisville numbers a large base of fans, and you also have the grads and small school sympathizers who cheer for the other state schools such as Western Kentucky University and Murray State University.

In Kentucky, you are largely associated with “who you pull for.”

High school boys basketball has a similar draw. The state remains one of the few in the nation who crown just one state champion and, though attendance has lagged in recent years with college games on TV most nights and other entertainment options, the state tournament’s Sweet 16 at Lexington’s Rupp Arena and Louisville’s Freedom Hall were a true spectacle and a “must-have ticket” each spring.

But girls basketball? It ranks a very distant third.

And at a rural school on a cold and wet Monday night in late January where you have a junior varsity/varsity girls doubleheader, the stands are littered with a few hardy souls – mainly family, a couple friends, the team manager, scorekeeper and one unfortunate sportswriter who drew the short stick.

Basically, those who coach girls basketball at this level are not doing it for the money. Nor the fame.

They are simply doing it for the love of the game.

And that was Gerald Tabor.

I was there, off to the side, as Coach Tabor watched the members of his state championship squad cut down the nets in Bowling Green’s Diddle Arena one Saturday night in mid-March in 1996. There was a smile across his face, but you could almost feel a sense of relief and weariness radiating from him.

This had been a long time coming. There were plenty of times when his squads were on the wrong end of a 25-point blowout. A couple of seasons of first-round losses in the district tournament.

Yet, he remained. Teaching the fundamentals. Teaching teamwork. Teaching loyalty and perseverance.

He truly cared for each member of his team, whether they were a state champion or a squad that finished below .500.

On the day I heard the news that Coach Tabor had died, I read that Louisville men’s basketball coach Rick Pitino was planning to unveil Maker’s Mark bourbon bottles bearing his face and achievements.

Sure, Connecticut women’s coach Geno Auriemma has won eight Division One national championships and been named Coach of the Year on six occasions. Say the words Pat Summitt, and you instantly recall the victories and national titles won at Tennessee.

Say the name Gerald Tabor.

And the former players and his many friends and family say the life lessons he instilled in them and left them with are far greater than any bourbon bottle or national championship.

They’ll say he was simply Coach.