Photo by Ron Burkett.
Marcus Thomas grabs the attention of his team each time he steps into the huddle.
Passionate people tend to rub off on the people around them.
They inspire their peers and understudies to take the next step, to go further than they thought possible, and to unite others behind a cause.
That is exactly what Hewitt-Trussville interim head basketball coach Marcus Thomas has done.
Thomas took over shortly before the season in the midst of a hectic situation that threw the program into chaos. He had a built-in excuse to go through the motions and concede the job to be too tough to have success. He has not entertained that possibility for a second. His conscience will not allow it.
“The guys know that I’m a competitor,” Thomas said.
He will not go down without a fight, and that ever-present desire allows him to relate to players a generation younger than him.
“That’s one area that the age barrier is not there. They see me as coach and mentor and I see them as player. But when we step on the court, I want to win as badly as they do,” he said.
Last season did not go according to plan for the Huskies. Many games were decided by halftime, and playing in the same area as Spain Park and Mountain Brook, two of the top teams in the state, made things tough. A 7-23 record was the end result, and much of the roster from that team remains intact.
Do not let that last fact fool you, though. This is not the same team from last year, and Thomas is a key reason why.
“Coach has such a burning passion for the game,” senior guard Josh Monski said. “He has the ability to inspire us to be the best we can be on and off the court.”
Sam Frazier is an example of that inspiring nature reaping benefits. In Hewitt-Trussville’s second game of the season, the junior guard knocked down a three-pointer with under a minute remaining to seal the win over crosstown rival Pinson Valley.
Leading up to that shot, however, Frazier was struggling. Thomas said he had not been shooting well in practice or in game situations, but he stayed in the gym after practice the day before the game in hopes of finding his stroke once again.
“Sam was in here yesterday on his own,” Thomas said after that game. “He took right at 600 shots.”
In the timeout preceding that play, Thomas showed confidence in Frazier by drawing up the play and telling him that he would be open.
“I told him, ‘I watched you shoot 600 shots and I know this is going to be 601 and you’re going to make this one just like you made the other ones,” Thomas said.
Sure enough, there he was, wide open on the wing. Thomas “could see it in his eyes” that he thought of passing up the shot once the ball was in his hands. But he took aim and fired. He drained it.
Athletic director Karen Johns has been witness to the belief level of the players rising with each day, as she watched the team run the table in the Albertville Civitan Christmas Classic.
“He has changed how they feel about themselves as people, and that has given them the will and desire to get better. There are weaknesses to overcome, but they believe in themselves and each other and that will last a lifetime,” she said.
Thomas admits that his team is not the most athletic, fastest or strongest team, but even when Hewitt-Trussville faces an opponent that is simply better on a given day, nothing less than a 32-minute, complete game effort is expected. The Huskies have followed through with that.
He said, “We haven’t had a single game where they just dropped their heads and called it quits. Not once. I’m pleased with them and their effort.”
Many times in the huddle, Thomas can be heard yelling, “Listen to me!” This is not an indictment on his men. It’s quite the opposite. It’s a testament to their intensity.
“It’s not because the guys are bickering amongst themselves,” he said. “The bench is talking to them, pepping them up, and I love that.”
One of the strategies being discussed once the bench calms down is a play called “Five Out,” which the Huskies ran ad nauseam in an upset win over Homewood in December that snapped the Patriots’ nine-game winning streak.
The idea is that the offense spreads everyone out around the three-point line and uses cuts to the basket to draw defenders out of position and set up easy buckets.
“We can put five guys on the floor at any time that can dribble, pass, or shoot. Teams with bigger guys can struggle with that,” Thomas said. “We need an advantage when we go in (to a game).”
Thomas devotes time to and harps on a popular video, “The Beautiful Game,” that focuses on the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs and the importance of teamwork to create a successful basketball team.
Late in a close game, the name of that film will be heard, as Thomas instructs his guys to emulate what they have seen.
The chemistry that results from those situations is the biggest difference from last year to this year.
“We are more unified this year, resulting in less selfishness and more team-oriented basketball,” Monski said.
The school mascot is a husky, allowing Thomas the perfect opportunity for one last team-building analogy. He compares his team to a pack of dogs in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, and the fact that if one dog in the pack quits pulling its weight, the whole sled is thrown into disarray.
When that scenario is translated to reality, Thomas is the driver behind the sled’s success.
