Records are made to be broken, Carter County Basketball

Published 10:59 am Tuesday, December 27, 2022

By C.Y. Peters

 The game is not played like it was in the 1970s’.  Today you get two free throw shots after ten fouls, there is a three-point line that was put into play in the late 1980s’ and the teams play in many separate leagues.  The game is very much faster; no slow down, just run and gun.

Last year watching a Science Hill game, I kept up with how long it took them to shoot once they received possession of the ball.  Seven to eight seconds from one end to the other and a shot was up; amazing, not just one play, every play.

     In 1974 Happy Valley had slowed the game down enough that they would win a state tournament.  They did it without a three-point line and only two divisions.  It was the first year the TSSAA went to two divisions, small school and large school. In 1960 when Hampton won the state title, there was only one division; you had to beat them all to be crowned champ.

The game has really changed, and records are made to be broken.

This year Lyndie Ramsey broke a scoring record at Unaka for girls breaking the 2,200-point mark, a record set by Angie Peters back in 1988.  Still, today records set in the 1960s and 70s are hard to break.

Craig Fair still holds the scoring record at Hampton with 48, Eddie Holly has Unaka’s scoring record at 43, and Grady Hill still holds the all-time high scoring record at Cloudland set in 1976.  Danny Webster’s scoring mark for Happy Valley was set in 1963.   Fair scored over 1,600 and has the school’s single-game record at 48.  Jack Waycaster and Willie Malone each scored 43 points in games.  In recent years Michael Robinsons gained the record at 49 for Elizabethton. He scored them against Unicoi County.

     Holly led the conference twice in scoring averaging 16.9 his junior year and 23.4 his senior season. At the time, the 43 points Holly scored, is still the school’s best.  Will Sexton came close two years ago, scoring 42 against University High, and Aaron Dugger scored 41 twice in the early 2000s.  Coach Donald Ensor is Unaka’s winningness coach with 219 wins, including a 2004 State title.

     Danny Webster may have been one of the best Warriors ever, scoring 40 points in one game and 41 in another. Doug Verable scored over 1,200 points and Marty Street tallied 1,194.  Coach Charlie Bayless had five seasons where he won 30 games after he started coaching at Jonesboro in 1951. Bayless played in two state tournaments for the Warriors, 1941 and 1942, and lost in the quarterfinals.  He won the 1974 State title and coached for 59 years.

     Grady Hill lettered all four years at Cloudland and finished his high school career with 1,587 points which is second behind all-time leading scorer Sam Rogers.  Rogers, who played in the 1960s scored 1823 points and took the Landers to a state tournament.  Their first state tournament appearance in basketball.  They beat Frayser 65-55 in Memphis at the Mid South Coliseum, where Rogers scored 23 points.  A great performance but his teammate Holden scored 30 in that game; Rogers also grabbed ten rebounds.  In game two of the state Tournament Rogers was six for nine from the field and six for eight from the line scoring 18 points, but the Landers lost to Nashville Stratford 66-48.  Back then, there were 18 teams in the one-bracket state, including Science Hill and Oak Ridge.  Science Hill lost the Championship game to Chattanooga Riverside.

     Hill’s best one-year average was 25 points a game his senior season.  He played his first year for Jerry White and his other three for Dallas Williams. He was named the school’s MVP as a junior-selected all-conference and on many all-tournament teams. Hill was selected All-State his senior year along with All-Conference and taking his second MVP award.  His final point tally was 1587 during his four years.  He broke the single-game scoring record by tossing in 46 his senior year.

     Buck Van Huss was 33 years old before he started coaching high school basketball and his first season would be the only one he would record a losing record.

     Carter County has had seven state MVPs in the state tournament. Carl Treadway was the first back in 1944 for Elizabethton.  Four years later, Joe Treadway at Happy Valley won the title in 1948.  Another Warrior Monta Clark won it for John Treadway, who would coach at Elizabethton the following year and stay until 1972.  Happy Valley would win the state again in 1974, and Marty Street was selected MVP.  Jerry White’s Hampton Bulldogs lost the 1983 state title but Leon Tolley was selected the Most Valuable Player.  In 2004 Tyler McCann, the only Sophomore, won the MVP for Unaka as they won the state title.  The only girl to win is Kayla Marosites in 2014 as Elizabethton girls won the state coached by Len Dugger.  The Cyclones lost three games that year, but the next two seasons went 65-0 in season play, losing one game each year in the state tournament.