KANNAPOLIS— How many times have you heard it: “What have you done for me lately?”
Doug Wilson hopes people in Kannapolis ask him Saturday what he has done lately. He can tell them that on Friday night, he did what no one thought possible. He coached his alma mater to a championship.
In girls basketball.
A championship in girls basketball? At A.L. Brown, the football school?
“It’s not all about football anymore,” beamed Wonder junior Elise Stanback, all the while being hugged and pounded on the back and hugged some more by elated Wonder fans. “The Lady Wonders can do something too,”
Stanback had just led Brown to an improbable 46-43 win over a second-seeded West Rowan club that sported two wins over the Wonders, 19 victories overall and a nine-game winning streak coming into the finals.
Wilson will be the first to tell you Stanback is his leading lady. She’s only 5-4 but Wilson likes to point out she jumps like 6-4.
“Let me tell you a story,” Wilson said, beginning to ramble about a recent practice where he was shooting 3-pointers. “I’m the best shooter on the team,” he said, “which isn’t a good thing.
One Wilson shot popped the net up. He told 6-2 center Tameika Powell to go pull the net down. She couldn’t do it. Wilson tried. He couldn’t do it.
Stanback told them all to move back. Wilson shook his head as the pogo stick had little trouble pulling the net back down.
Wilson has plenty of stories like that about his pride and joy Wonders. He’s a talker. And now, he can talk the talk. He coached these girls to middle school championships and came up with them once they hit the high school level.
He can remember being brought down to earth quickly three years ago when Stanback, Kesha Johnson, Joanna Hutchinson and Powell became freshmen.
A.L. Brown was a moribund program when Wilson and his crew made it to the high school.
“Ithought we had other players (besides his prized freshmen).” he said. “There were three.”
So he gave uniforms to his scorekeeper and tennis star Bailey Gainey. And promptly went 2-21.
But look on the bright side. Despite losing his first game 77-33 to North Rowan, Wilson eventually doubled the win total from the year before.
He also loved winning the SPCTournament Friday in front of a pro-Kannapolis crowd.
“I’ll bet everybody in this gym not for West was pulling for us tonight,” he said. “There’s nothing about us to dislike — except me.”
That’s where Wilson is wrong. A hometown boy wins his school a title in girls basketball in his old gym in front of old friends?
There’s a lot to like.
And it was fun watching Wilson on the sidelines. He confessed to being nervous beforehand. When the Wonders’ double-digit lead shrunk to nothing, he flung his tie into the stands. Once, when the referee halted play to wipe sweat off the floor, everyone was convinced it fell from Wilson’s brow.
“Ifelt like Pete Gillen,” Wilson chuckled, remembering he saw the Virginia coach soaking wet while being interviewed after the Cavs beat Duke. “It was hot.”
And so is his Wonders.
At 13-12, a win in the first round of the sectionals Monday will assure A.L. Brown of its first winning season since, well, let’s just say a very long time.
Stanback expected the championship win, of course. Brimming with confidence, she sank five free throws in an intense, fourth quarter and finished with 19. She made steals. She dished out assists. She hit the jumpers and made drives into the trees.
It was time to show not only the football fanatics but West Rowan that these same girls who made mincemeat of middle school opponents could win the big games on this level too.
“(West) had the big head,” Stanback said. “They said they were going to beat us. Isaid, ‘We’ll see.’”
We did see. Stanback was banged and bruised,once being sent to the floor hard by a pick by Pieper. She sprang up immediately. This was her night. And A.L. Brown’s.
It was Wilson’s night too.
“He’s like a father to me,” Stanback said. “I knew he’d make a big difference if he came up with us.”
And in the back of his mind, so did Wilson, who was 40-5 in middle school. The 1968 A.L. Brown graduate remembers his first trip to Bullock after being named coach.
“I walked in and looked up at the wall,” Wilson said softly. “I said, ‘The one thing I want to do before I leave is to put a banner on that wall.’
“That just happened.”
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