Historical Association #2

[Wayne23]

(Author’s note: I am choosing not to write this with the dialect. Assume the southern accent, slang, usage, spelling…)

5/1/1886: Bubba Watson here. I’m a lucky guy. Always have been. Born in 1861, the year that miserable traitor Lincoln wouldn’t let us go our own way, in the boonies of North Carolina, ta a family that had nothing. Poor as the colored folk. But we managed, barely.

Grew up tall enough an’ athletic enough to have Wofford College, here in Spartansburg, SC, let me play basketball for them and pay for my college education.

When I graduated they took me on as an assistant coach, an’ this year, when the head coach retired they gave me the job, so here I am, a head coach on my 25th birthday. I call that lucky! Now it wouldn’t pay enough to live on but they let me take all my meals on campus and I live free in faculty housing. It’s a tiny little flat, but it’s all I need.

My plan is to tell you about my team and that, and to tell a little about what’s going on in the world while I’m at it. For instance some damn Yankee communists are rioting in Chicago for an 8 hour workday. Hope the cops shoot all of the damn fools.

6/5: The other day that dirty damn Yankee President Grover Cleveland married a girl he and his widow raised. Sounds pretty dang sick to me, but he’s a Yankee, ain;t he.

6/26: 5 scholarships. We’ll stay close to home with our recruiting. We don’t have hardly any money. We’ll try to go 2-3, big-small or small-big.

7/15: The offices here at Wofford ain’t much, but we get the job done. They just installed a phone but we all gotta share it. Still, it helps, and our facilities ain’t the worst.

8/21: I offer to 3 PGs, 2 bigs. Not a lot of interest though. We’ll see if it develops.

9/18: No recruits committed yet but 3 are close. Soft schedule this year. Wins draw recruits.

9/25: Got a PG, #513; we like this guy a lot, happy to have him. Lost 2 guys. I may save some money and wait for spring. Talking it over with my assistants.

10/2: Got a PF, #317. Lost 1.

1st day of practice. We have a good starting lineup but no depth at all. Hopefully we can help some of these guys to develop. LONG coaches meeting after practice.

10/9: Got a C, #209. 2 to go. Sure like to at least get another guard.

A little more about me. We really were that poor. If we didn’t hunt, and fish, and trap, and keep a big garden, we wouldn’t eat. My paw couldn’t get a real job. He’d do day work at farms, help out with whatever, get a quarter here, a quarter there for doing a hard, dirty job nobody else wanted to do. But he only ever got a real job a few years ago. Things got better then, but ‘til that time it was a struggle. We lived, they still do, in a little shack with a dirt floor. We slept on the floor. Paw found a way to divide the shack up into a room for my three sisters, one for me, one for him and maw. But it was just some kind of cheap old wood that he found somewhere that had been thrown away. He worked it so it could be pushed against the wall during the day to make more room in the shack. Maw never stopped. She tended the garden, hauled water when the kids were at school and couldn’t do it, skinned whatever paw had brought for supper and then cooked it up. The kids helped when we got home from school. But we were close, and we loved each other, and we got by. Again, now that paw has a real job things are better, but they’re still in that dang shack. The kids are all grown and gone, but they all live nearby, and they all do a little better than the folks. Not a lot, but some. If I ever make enough money the first thing I’ll do is get my folks into a better place to live. Can’t do that now, I’m just getting by, but someday, I hope.

11/6: Her3e’s the lineup. It looks set, with a 7 man rotation:

Senior Jon Jenk starts at PG and plays a little SG. He may be our best player.

Frosh Job Hutt is at SG, and backs up at PG. He looks good, too.

Junior Ark Dill backs up at SG, and maybe at PG. We have two other guards hoping for PT.

Senior Ben Love starts at SF and backs up at PF.

Senior Dal Genn and junior Gar Snow start inside. They’ll share the two spots equally, moving back and forth between them.

I don’t know what the other teams in the Southern Conf. look like, but I like my guys. We’re picked middle of the pack, 5th. I’m hoping for top three.

Let’s do this! It will be interesting to coach for the very first time as a head coach at any level.

[Wayne23]

11/20: 2-0 start! Love it! Both were big wins, 24 and 16 points. Our guards are leading the way but the big guys are doing fine.

All three recruits signed. We gotta get another PG, and one more guy- best available; I don’t care what position. But we GOTTA get a guard.

Gotta say I haven’t saved much money for spring recruiting but there wasn’t much there. It’s a BIG need.

12/4: 5-1. Loving this coaching thing! We only lost to Howard, there. Them colored kids can PLAY! They had only 3 TOs. Our lineup looks right. We haven’t had to adjust at all. Course we ain’t very deep, but my 7 are getting things done. SG Job Hutt is our scorer, 15.8. PG Jon Jenk ain;t far behind with 14.7, and he’s great moving the ball. Den Robb’s our #3 scorer from the bench but he gets starter’s minutes, really. Not a good defender though. Gar Snow gets 11.8 and 8.2 RBs to lead in that. Love and Genn do okay. Ark Dill is a good sub guard but he don’t play much D, either.

3 more pre-conf. games to play, 2 at home. Be nice to go 7-2 or better.

I mentioned them colored kids a while back. Just so ya know, I got nothing against them. Glad they get the chance, some of them, to go to college and play sports and all that. I think they should have their place and we should have ours, but everybody’s got to live, and I’m for that. I saw how hard they struggled when I was a kid growing up, even a little more than we did in my family. Mixed race teams? Well, I think that works up north but down here we ain’t even got mixed race schools. Would I be for it if it happened? I don’t know. They sure got some good players. I’d have to give it a lot of thought. It will happen someday, I’m sure. In my time? Let’s just say I won’t stand in the way.

12/25: 7-2 going to conference play. An OT win and a 3 point loss in the last 3. +8.6 PPG, +5.5 RBs, +3.5 TOs. RPI #114. Same 7 doing the work.

Let’s see what we can do in conf.!

All of our travel is by train. We board public trains, with sleeper cars most of the time. The bigger schools have their own trains, rented, or whatever, but we don’t have that kind of budget. Sometimes we do the milk run trains with lots of stops but we avoid that when we can. But this is the only way to get where we’re going, and it will have to do. Frankly, it ain’t so bad. I like to sleep on the train. I wish the study facilities were better, that’s the big issue. The food’s pretty good and the portions are big.

[Wayne23]

1/1/1887: 1-1, but our opener was to projected 1st place VMI, there, so we expected a loss. As it turned out we won there and hen lost at home, which should not have happened. We scored 49 points. Our previous low was 60. 26.2% shooting. 17 points in the 2nd half.

1/15: 10-5, 3-3. The conf. is bunched up, 5 teams at 4-2, 2 of us at 3-3. Long way to go.

We got a 3rd big guy, C, #248. Still need that guard.

1/29: 14-5, 7-3. I think we may have come together as a team. We’re in a 4 way tie for 1st, 2 up on 5th. +6.2 PPG, +5.5 RBs, +2.1 TOs. We have 6 players getting between 13.9 and 8.2, and #7 Ark Dill is backing up at guard very well.

There’s some new thing called the Amateur Athletic Union. Just got started. It’s supposed to help teams and players. Sounds interesting.

2/12: 17-6, 10-4, RPI #55. Tied for 1st with UNC Green who we play there in the last regular season game. The same guys keep getting the work done for us.

I’m really happy with season one s a head coach. I’m definitely learning, and I have a really good team to work with. I don’t know if we’ll finish first in the conference but we’ll do dang good, I know that.

2/19: 19-6, 12-4, RPI #44. Still tied for 1st, 2 up on 3rd with 2 to play. Be hard to finish below 2nd. There’s this thing called the Bracket Buster. We’re in it against Northeastern, 13-12. It’s a distraction from the conference schedule and

I don’t like it but my A.D. says it’s a big money maker. My program better get part of the money!

2/26: 21-7, 13-5, RPI #48. We finish 2nd, which is great! +5.2 PPG, +5.8 RBs, +1.7 TOs. SG Job Hutt leads us in scoring with 13.8. PG Jon Jenk leads in assists with 4.9. Big guy Dal Genn leads in RBs with 8.4.

Let’s see if we can do something in the post season!

[Wayne23]

3/3: Last place Cit (I abbreviated a lot of team names), 7-21, 3-15, Beat #6 in the play in, so they’re up. We beat them by 16 and 12.

3/4: 78-68. 21 for Hutt, 15, 2, 5 for Jenk, 11, 6 for Center Gar Snow. +14 TOs- we caused 27!

#6 seed Chatt, 16-13, 10-8, won in an upset, so we play them in the semis. We won by 4 here but got blasted by 25 there. We think that was just an off night, and that we’re the better team.

3/5: 65-56. We never trailed but it was fairly close all the way. 13, 11 for Snow, 15, 4, 2 for Jenk, 13, 4 for Hutt. 10 RBs each for Love and Genn.

It’s #1 seed UNC Green, 23-7, 14-4, for the title. We won by 12 here and got blown out of the building there. But again, we had a real bad night. If we play, we can beat them.

3/6: We played, and we beat them! 70-60 and the title. 15, 5 for Jenk, 12 each for Snow and Hutt, but 21, 8 for 6th man Den Robb. He was hot, I left him in for most of the 2nd half and lots of the 1st.

We make the NCAA tournament in my first season! Never expected that.

24-7, 13-5, RPI #39. 10 seed?

#12 East. We play #5 seed, #14 ranked St. Joe, 27-5. Tough draw, but this is not impossible.

3/16: 84-90. We gave it all we had. 5 guys in double figures. It was a total shoot out with not much D by either team. In the end, they just outlasted us.

4/3: #4 UCLA wins it all.

4/4: Awards: Job Hutt is Frosh OY, and 2nd team. Jon Jenk and Gar Snow make 1st team. I get Conf. COY in my 1st year.

4/9: Several schools called, asking if I was interested in coaching there. I can’t leave after only one year here.

4/16: Lost my #1 and #3 assistants. Hired low rated guys but they cost too much.

4/23: Need a budget increase desperately. We get $2,000. Not enough.

24-8, 13-5. Very happy with my first season!

[Wayne23]

5/1: The more I think about it the more upset I am that we didn’t get the money we needed to fund the program. I can’t even hardly recruit. If I can leave in the spring, I’m going.

6/5: Looking at transfers.

6/12: Got a great looking PG from Missouri ST.

6/26: 5 scholarships. Need a guard and 3 bigs.

We lost 4 really good players to graduation. I’m a little concerned about this year’s team.

7/25: Recruiting isn’t going far, mostly because of the money situation.

8/21: We offer to 2 PGs, a PF, 2 Cs. All have at least a little interest. Hoping we don’t have the struggles we did last year. We need to fill those slots with good players.

9/18: Got one. a PG, #327. Didn’t lose any.

9/25: Got a C, #488. We like this guy. Lost a big guy.

10/2: Got the C we really wanted, #313. Lost 2, but we’re getting there. We’re also out of money, $2 left. My A. D. and I are having frequent run ins about that. Dang football team gets all the money, and they don’t win. 2-7 this year.

1st day of practice. I’m worried. We lost most of our talent. I can only hope these guys develop. The worst problem? Most of these guys can’t play defense. Oh, I don’t have a PG. SGs will play there.

10/16: We got another PG, #152. One more big guy. Hoping!

[Wayne23]

11/6: The two exhibition games we played this week taught me and my staff a lot. One of the things we figured out is if we don’t learn to play D it is going to be a very long season. The other thing though is that we have some weapons on O. I think we’re a little deeper than last year, but that D!

Here’s the lineup:

Senior Ark Dill and soph Job Hutt will share the Point for now, and both will play some SG. As I said, I don’t have a PG so we’ll see what happens. Backing up at guard are soph Marq Kown and frosh Josh Farr, who is a PG, the only one on the squad, but he’s not ready.

Senior Rile Auss starts at SF, backs up inside. Behind him at SF are three guys right now, juniors Kyle Chil and Tony Perl, and frosh Bon Jonn.

Inside is our best player Gar Snow, a senior, and Gem Crip, another senior.

Let’s see what happens.

I haven’t mentioned my guitar. Don’t know why. I play it all the time and bring it everywhere. I play the popular music that comes around- Beulah Land, The Old Chisholm Trail, Silver Threads Among the Gold, Old Time Religion, The Rare
Old Mountain Dew- a bunch of them. I love to sing, and the boys gather round when I do, so I guess I ain’t bad.

11/20: 2-0 start. Easy teams, at home, one in OT, but I’ll take it.

Next one’s here, then 6 of 7 on the road.

One of our recruits did not sign, a PG, our #1 guy. NOT good!

Oh, the polls pick us to finish last. One of our goals is to win the conf. tourney. More trouble. The other goal is to win 15. Hoping we can do that.

12/4: 4-2. Lost the 2 road games. 4 in a row coming up next. We gave Jonn’s minutes to Perl and gave Kown’s to Farr. No other changes.

12/25: 5-4, RPI #203. -2.4 PPG (That D is killing us), +4.3 RBs (our strength), -0.7 TOs (I thought it might be worse). Ark Dill leads us with 17.0. Job Hutt who is now mostly at PG with Dill mostly at SG, gets 13.8, and 3.9 assists. Our 3
inside guys rebound. Our 3 man bench is doing okay.

[Wayne23]

1/1/1888: 6-5, 1-1. This season is going to be defined by 1-1 weeks, I’m afraid. Just going for those 15 wins.

1/15: 9-6, 4-2, RPI #112. In a 3 way tie for 1st. Really happy with this. But to make it last the D has got to step up and we gotta handle the ball better.

We get the PF, #524. Probably need to replace the PG who hasn’t signed though.

Next 2 are away, then 2 after that are at home.

1/29: 12-7, 7-3, RPI #78. -1.8 PPG, +4.2 RBs, -1.3 TOs. Still in a 3 way tie for 1st. Not sure how we’re doing this, but loving it. Our guards do the coring, Dill has 15.1, Hutt 14.9. 12.4 and 7.0 for Crip, 10.0 and 7.4 for Snow.

2 of our committed recruits missed the SAT score. Down to 2 Cs and a PG. No money, 2 recruits to convince. Not gonna be easy.

2/12: 13-10, 8-6. Alone in 3rd. Lost 3 of the last 4 and it wasn;t close in any of them. Time to wake up!

2/26: We end the regular season 15-13, 10-8, RPI #133. Tied for 3rd, #4 seed. -3.8 PPG, +4.5 RBs, -1.8 TOs.

Still chasing recruits. Ain’t much we can do and I ain’t confident.

[Wayne23]

3/3: #5 seed East Tenn ST, 12-16, 8-10, won the play in. Won by 14 here, then lost by 11 there. We think we’re better- on a good night.

3/4: It was a good night- barely. 80-75. We got a 23 point lead down to 1 before rallying a little at the end. 23, 4, 7 for PG Job Hutt, 22, 5 for PF/C Gem Crip, 18, 4, 4, 4 for Dill. -10 RBs hurt. 15 TOs, but they had 20.

#1 seed Cit, 19-10, 13-5, in the semis. Their SF is out with a knee. They beat us by 16 twice so this won’t be easy.

3/5: 66-69. We missed our last three shots, and they made their free throws late. We gave them a battle though. 18, 5 for C/PF Gar Snow. 14, 5 for Dill.

We finish near the very bottom nationally in both TOs and Points allowed, so it’s amazing we did as well as we did.

3/12: Shocked to get an invitation from the WOL. #2 seed West. We play #7 seed College of Charleston, 15-15. They have a very good PG. Given our weakness there that could mean trouble.

3/14: 89-77. We had a really hot shooting night. 24, 5, 8 for Hutt, 4 others with 10 or more. +13 RBs. Hey, let’s keep playing!

Next is #3 seed Illinois ST, 18-14. Everybody scores some for them so they’re hard to defend.

3/16: 78-87. Our weak D, especially outside, did us in. They shot 58.2%. 16, 6 for SF Rile Auss, 15, 8 for Dill.

This ends a frustrating season, and given the war between me and my A. D., I hope it’s my last game here at Wofford. We’ll see.

Big blizzard up north. I mean BIG, like they never seen before. We even got snow down here which don’t ever happen. It wasn;t much but it stuck to the ground for a while. “Blizzard of ‘88” is what they’re calling it.

4/3: #1 Michigan ST won the title.

4/4: Awards: Job Hutt makes Conf. 1st team, Gem Crip, Ark Dill, and Gar Snow make 2nd. If we coulda played D we mighta done something.

4/9: A damn Yankee school wants me. No way I’m ever goin’ up there. East Tenn ST wants me too, but they’re in this conf. It would be a step up, but not a good move. Waitin’ by the phone in the athletic department.

VMI calls. Another team that would be a step up, but they’re in Conf. that ain’t ever good. Come on, phone!

Utah ST? Nah. I don’t think I’d like it in Mormon land.

Texas Southern. Program’s not in good shape but a step up. Hm. No.

I may need to call VMI or East Tenn ST back, it’s getting late in the day.

4/11: Going to VMI. Actually, a military school fits in pretty good with my philosophy of discipline and that. I called, they said they hadn’t filled the position, and to come up and look the place over. The program ain’t in bad shape.
15-16, 8-10 this year. Only losing one starter. Bigger budget, good assistants in place. It'll be awkward with Wofford in the conf., but this is a good deal.

Not sure how I’ll get on up there but I hear Virginia is just as southern as South Carolina, so I should be okay. They’re setting me up in faculty housing right on campus. A big old mansion that was on a plantation before the school came here. It’s chopped up into four flats. Mine’s on the ground floor, which is good. A little big for me, but that’s fine, too. I’ll get meals on campus when the cafeteria’s open, and the colored help here at the house will cook when the caf ain’t open. Facilities are pretty good, and the academics are just a tiny nit looser than at Wofford. I think I can build something here.

One thing. They were terrible recruiters here. Switching some guys to academic scholarships to make room for some spring recruiting. There’s money left- more than I had to start at Wofford!

4/16: I get two decent looking PGs.

4/23: I ask for facilities. Too much $ left to ask for a budget increase. That feels strange! No. We’ll be using some walk ons next year. Only 10 scholarship guys.

I gotta say thy been awful nice to me so far. Making me feel real welcome! Learned a couple a new songs that just came out, “Drill Ye tarries Drill,” and “The loveliest Night of the Year.” The first one’s quick, the second one’s slow.

17-15, 10-8 in my last season at Wofford. We finished 4th. Overall, I’m 41-23, .641.

[Wayne23]

5/1: I buy the East Gold. It’s great to be able to do that. One decent budget increase will let me buy national basic. Hope to be able to do that next year.

6/5: Looking for transfers.

6/12: Got a PF from Tulsa. He shows promise. Still looking.

6/16: Got an SF from Weber ST. He started for them.

We got one more slot open but I think I’m done.

6/26: 4 scholarships. I’d say 3 bigs.

All settled in, know my way around. Good people here. I gotta say I love being on a military campus. Everything is in perfect shape all the time, everybody’s polite as can be. And I know my players will work their butts off, and they gotta be smart to be accepted here. Looking forward to good things happening.

7/31: We ain’t getting all that far with recruiting but it’s so nice to have enough money. We’ll get there.

People are talking about things like moving pictures, phonographs. Don’t seem possible, but they say it’s gonna be here soon- both.

8/21: We offer to a PG, 2 PFs, and a C.

9/18: Lost a PF I thought we had a real shot at. Dang! 2 others completely lose interest. Double dang! But we got time and we got money.

Soft schedule.

9/25: We get a C, #1035 for now, but he’s a glass eater. Lose 2 others.

10/2: 1st day of practice. We got 7 guys who can play a little.

10/9: We get a PG, #408.

10/16: We lose a PG.

11/6: 9 man rotation, but not liking what I have at guard except for one guy:

Confusion at the Point. We thought soph Sid Dunn had the position locke dup but her looked terrible in the exhibitions, He’ll start but walk on soph Andy Roll and frosh Kit Wall will both get minutes, maybe lots of them.

Senior Will Robb looks solid at SG. Roll will sub for him.

Junior Sha Herb is solid at SF and PF, starting at SF but shifting over.

Senior Jan Cren and junior Des Kell back up at SF.

Senior Sam Gant and junior Tel Jamm start inside.

11/10: We got us a new President. Cleveland won the popular vote but lost the electoral. What a stupid system. Benjamin Harrison is President. His grandfather held the job, too. Cleveland says he’ll be back. Hope so, I liked him.

Scary thing over in London with them nurses ripped open and killed like that. Hope they find that Jack the Ripper guy.

[Wayne23]

11/20: 1-1 start. Lost our opener on the road, then won at home. Center Sam Gant had 2 good games.

Our 2 recruits sign.

12/4: 5-1. We’re playing real good D, and Sam Gant is really playing a strong game, 18.0, 8.3, and he’s our best defender. Andy Roll is now starting at PG. Sid Dunn is not getting it done, so he’s down to our #3 guard. He should be a more effective player. Hopefully he will become one. Kit Wall is out of the rotation, mostly because of TOs. No other changes yet, but Kell is pressing Herb at SF.

12/25: 7-2 to end pre-conf. play. RPI #112. +11.2 PPG, +6.0 RBs, +0.8 TOs. Gant continues to be our man, 18.4 and 8.2. Will Robb is our best outside scorer.

Let’s see what we can do in conf.