By Yaneek Smith
Toledo Free Press Staff Writer
news@toledofreepress.com
When Fred Coogler was hired as the head basketball coach at Scott High School with just one week remaining before the team’s first scrimmage, it would’ve been reasonable to assume the club would suffer a setback for having such uncertainty at the top spot for so long.
Quite the opposite happened.
Previous head coach Chris Dames resigned Sept. 15, leaving the program in limbo before Coogler, a team assistant, was given control.
The Bulldogs, led by guard Chris Darrington, forward Jay Wells and center Chance Hawkins went 21-4, winning the City League championship and a Division II sectional title before falling to fifth-ranked Defiance, 44-37, in the district final March 15.
Coogler, who works as the building operator at the high school and serves as the pastor at Faith Temple Ministry on Ewing Street, led the team to a successful run this season by relating to them and getting to know them on a more personal level. He related to his players in the way that a pastor relates to his parishioners.
“They called me Pops, and I call them my sons,” Coogler said. “Once per week, we had a huddle, where we’d come together for about an hour, an hour-and-a-half, sometimes two hours. We talk about life, we talk about anything.
“Our subject was forgetting those things that are behind, looking forward to the things before you. The reason being that anything that’s from last year or before is behind us. For us to accomplish the goals that were set, we needed to look forward, and we did that. Each week, we had something different. As their coach and an ordained pastor, I prayed and I got direction from God. We were directed from God, first and foremost.”
And he brought in alumni to help the players understand and appreciate the program’s previous accomplishments, which includes a state championship in 1990 and nine appearances in the state tournament.
“One of the things I did was bring in a lot of the alums [to speak] to the kids,” Coogler said. “I had old players come into the gym and talk with the guys each week. Just after the City League Championship [a 56-52 overtime victory over Rogers High School], some alumni came in and bought the team shoes. They showed a lot of love and that’s one of the things that I wanted to bring back to Scott basketball. That richness of the alumni, they appreciated that and they showed their appreciation, they showed their support.”
But Coogler was also tough on them and demanded a lot. He scheduled 6 a.m. practices, a decision that he hoped would ultimately help them to value their time more.
“The 6 a.m. practices did a lot for the young men,” said Coogler. “My thinking was I needed to change the mindset of the guys. By doing that, that got them some discipline. If you’re going to get up at 5 a.m. and be at practice by 6 — it was time for school [afterward] and we would still have practice after school. I was thinking that brought a sense of self-motivation to them. I thought, ‘Let’s not let this 6 a.m. practice go in vain. I don’t want to get up that early, but since I’m up, let’s make the most of this.’ And it worked out well. It got to the point where they enjoyed 6 a.m. practices.”
He also expected them to take their studies seriously.
“Academics is a must,” Coogler said. “They all know that I will sit you down and you will not play if you don’t have things together. I will lose [a game] and not pass up the chance to teach you life lessons. If that comes with me losing games, then we’ll lose. They knew that, and they didn’t try me.”
Coogler, a 1984 graduate of Macomber High School, was an assistant on the 1989 team that Jim Jackson led to the Division I state championship.
“I wear my ’89 [championship] ring every day,” he said. “[But] I put my wedding ring on first.”
In addition to three wins over Rogers, which came by a combined eight points, the biggest victory of the season came in a 75-56 win over Lake in the district semifinal.
Darrington led Scott with 23 points, Hawkins scored 14 and Larry Green chipped in with 11 as Rogers shot 27-of-42 (64.3 percent) from the floor and 16-of-22 (72.7 percent) from the free-throw line. Holding a 44-40 lead just over one minute remaining in the third quarter, the Bulldogs put the game away by going on a 23-8 run.
Darrington, who led the City League with 23.9 points per game and was also good for 6.5 rebounds and 5.0 assists, earned District Player of the Year honors, and scored 38 points in Scott’s win over Rogers in the City League final. A first-team district selection last year, Darrington scored 40 points in the team’s 62-60, season-opening win over Delaware Hayes High School, and eclipsed the 1,000-point mark for his career, too.
Wells, who is 6-foot-3-inches, averaged 9.3 points and 10.0 rebounds, and Hawkins, who stands 6-foot-5-inches, averaged 8.5 points and 9.5 rebounds. They helped form a potent scoring trio with Darrington. Senior DeAngelo Blanchard, a 6-foot-5-inch center, Green, a 5-foot-11-inch point guard, along with guards Jaleel Carey, Aa’Ren Dinkins and Malik Brooks, forward Eli Belmon and center Damien Spearman helped to round out the rotation.
Coogler credited his players for their performance and for adjusting to his system, which required them to employ a full-court press.
“My guys did extremely well, I couldn’t be more proud to have coached these awesome young men,” he said. “It was wonderful because it was a totally new system, nothing from the previous year was kept. I take my hats off to these guys.
“As a coach, it was a joy to see the guys come together. Our motto was ‘Expect the best.’ We always expect the best not just of ourselves but of each other. Not just on the court but off the court.”
