Bryan Williams
The 2010 Yates championship team proved nobody does it better.
“…Yates high school, classless of 2010″
–National sports writer Rick Reilly, from his column in ESPN The Magazine about the Yates High School basketball team
Brandon Peters wanted out of the tunnel.
He stood in the back of a line of Yates Lions basketball players, his teammates, teenagers in crimson-and-gold-colored warm-up suits waiting to run from beneath the stands onto the court. The players slapped basketballs, clapped their hands and chanted in unison: “Heyyyyy, ohhhhh!” Clap, clap, clap.
Trouble brewed.
It was Thursday night at the state high school basketball tournament in Austin and Yates was scheduled to play its semifinal game, and the players, restless from waiting more than an hour in the locker room because of an overtime game before them, wanted out of the tunnel. The officials held back the players until the other teams cleared the court.
Read More
HOUSTON – Yates High School set a new state record in boys basketball Tuesday night with a 170-35 win over Lee High School. Yates had scored 100 points by halftime.
Tempers flared in the third quarter sparking a bench-clearing brawl. All but five players from each team were ejected. The large margin of victory didn’t sit well with Lee’s fans, players and coaches.
Yates is 14-0 this season and ranked number 2 in the nation by MaxPreps. The Lions won the 4A championship last year. The previous record high score in Texas was 166 points. The national record of 211 was set in 1964 in Louisiana.
“I feel very disrespected right now,” Lee coach Jacques Armant told the Houston Chronicle. “I don’t understand why Yates just kept scoring and pressing when they were up so much. These are kids. It isn’t good to do that to other young men.”
Yates coach Greg Wise said he played all 15 players and it wouldn’t be fair to the team to ask them to pull back.
“They work really hard in practice, and when they go in, they deserve the chance to play hard and compete, too,” Wise told the Houston Chronicle. “We are looking for another state championship, and we can’t get that unless we are continuing to get better and perfect our game. We aren’t scoring on other teams out of disrespect.”
Getting a whopping in a sport is part of the play – it’s a game that can teach life lessons that reach far beyond sports. There was a 135 pointt difference in the score. Were the Yates players supposed to intentionally miss shots or start passing the ball to the players for Lee? Are you supposed to tell your players not to play so well and to throw the other team a bone? If Yates would have let up some and let Lee get a few more baskets would that somehow make the Lee players feel better knowing the only reason they got the score they did is because the Yates team let them? Lee’s team was severely overmatched and there wasn’t too much that Yates could really do about it. Its a hard thing on both sides, but I do know if life beats you everyday it’s not going to take a day off to let you win.
Yates beat Austin High School 139-51 Saturday night and has scored over 100 points eight times this season.
