It’s difficult to determine whether it’s more important the team won a game or played five of them.
By: Kyle Moylan
It’s difficult to determine whether it’s more important that the New Egypt High School boys’ basketball team won a game or played five of them.
When a first-year varsity program is trying to get off the ground, they are both very important.
New Egypt’s win came in the first game of its own holiday basketball tournament. New Egypt defeated King’s Academy last Thursday night. New Egypt placed second in the event when it was defeated by Granville the following day.
"Our athletic director (Jim Davidson) is actively involved in sports, which is nice," New Egypt Coach John Corby said. "We went around looking for competition for the tournament which we thought we could play. It was good to see kids have some success."
Corby is in his second year with the program, serving as a freshman coach last year. Davidson was the coach when the program started with nothing but freshmen in the 1999-2000 school year.
"Jim Davidson did a great job of teaching," Corby noted. "That’s what we’re still doing. We’re building skills. There are some Rec programs in the area, but no AAU or CYO. Kids are a little behind. No seniors. No role models. But they are starting to believe in what we are doing."
When you build from scratch, you kind of create the recipe as you go along. That’s not to say one doesn’t start with as sound ingredients as possible, though.
Davidson got the program going. He then turned it over to Corby, who is at the right stage of his life to be taking on the challenge of starting a new team, making them believe in the future while they struggle through the present.
"I think my age has a lot to do with it. I’m 24," noted Corby, who has assistant coaches who are 24, 25 and 27. "We still jump in there and practice with the kids. We don’t look intimidating. We can show them that basketball can be played a right way."
According to Corby, New Egypt has learned that.
"Two years ago, they couldn’t dribble or pass," Corby said. "That’s changed now. Not only are the kids getting down the basic skills, they are starting to put up on all the small items about basketball."
New Egypt had to, thanks in large part to a scheduled that was almost hard to believe. New Egypt opened up against Florence, the two-time state champion. It then took on Palmyra and Burlington City.
"We have goals to improve," Corby said. "Right now we don’t care about wins and losses. That will come at a later date. There wasn’t a shot of us going into Florence and Burlington City and coming out with a victory."
What Corby did know was his team would play hard. He would get a good effort out of starters Keith Jones (6-foot-3 junior forward), Dustin Harper (6 foot junior guard, who average over 15 points on JV last year), Dan Henninger (a 5-foot-6 freshman point guard), Justin Wilkins (6-foot-2 sophomore center) and Dave Lipay (6-foot-1 sophomore shooting guard).
On the bench Corby has juniors Rob Quattrone and Mike Minney, sophomores Tim Majzer, Chris Brooks and Lance Boone and freshman Chris Helminger.
These players will get older. These players will get better. They have already gone to summer camp together. Corby is hoping to keep the players even more active this off-season. Not to say he has given up on this season yet. Quite the contrary, every game has significant meaning.
"Last year teams would come and rip the ball out of our hands and go in for lay-ups," Corby recalled. "That’s not happening anymore. We’re improving. I’m hoping by midseason we can surprise some people. I’m hoping we can sneak some wins. We’ll them get them back into camp and into a summer league. We have no seniors. We’ll all be back."
Playing ball and mixing in some wins as they go along.