The CheckerBoard

I was a youth minister in Fort Myers from 93 to 98 and attended the City of Palms Classic every year. Saw great players each year. Ron Mercer was the absolute best I saw. Tashaun Prince was a senior on his Compton California team, that team also had a senior named Chris Johnson who signed with UCLA and a 7 foot freshmen named Tyson Chandler. Our preacher was their team sponsor and they all came to our church on Sunday as well as his house for a cookout. Have an old picture somewhere of shooting hoops in the driveway with those guys. Teddy Dupay visited our youth group often and was from the area and he was the best pure shooter I've seen. He scored 50 in that tournament. Also saw Tim Thomas, Shaheen Holloway, and others. The town fell in love with the Mercer and Maddox duo from Goospasture. Also saw the Collins Twins who were 7 footers that both played at Stanford. Those were great tournaments.

Percy Eberheart at Clark Central in Athens GA. He played against Carlos Strong and Terrell Bell both who played at Cedar Shoals in Athens and went on to play at UGA. His team would do warm-ups with a Big Ball to get there shot down before the game. Percy's hands where so big that he could palm the ball. He went on to JUCO then to USCe and died during a pick up game what a shame.

to the board, Dive! Happy to have you here!

Like the screen name, by the way.

Thanks for posting, bull3350 and Dive Right! Glad to have you guys on the site and on the board!

Thanks again..I look forward to being here...

Atomic, if you live in OR, do you have any idea what happened to him? Things like that leave me befuddled when a talent like that just seems to fall off the map. I remember watching the team with him, Mike Caldwell(better FB player obviously-Cle browns) and the tough little PG(seemed like Adrian or something similar) play against my HS Karns. We had one of the best teams or at least very exciting teams we has ever had. Pretty sure the score at Karns was like 105-98 OR. Like 20 dunks in the game. About 7-8 by Miller. Also watched them play at Campbell Co.(almost impossible to beat them at home 8on5). CC had big Paul Provins who threw shot and discus for UT and one of the better atheletes/players around then, Kermit Marlow. Probably as exciting a style/tempo of basketball around ET I've seen.

I am going to take this in a different direction and go with Eric Coggins from Cosby HS. Averaged 37 ppg his senior despite sitting out large chunks of games b/c of his team team boatracing everyone else. Why have none of you heard of him? Because he was 5'8, had no length short arms and was built more like a tailback. But he was absolutely the best pure shooter I have ever seen in person. He constantly drained ridiculous three's Chris Lofton style with a defender all over him. He had perfect form, which he definitely had on Lofton's unique stroke, and got great lift and the ball went in with the same trajectory whether he curled off a screen, pulled up in transition or just spotted up and almost always ended up barely even touching the net. I don't even remember a single three of his even touching the rim. It is a damn shame the kid didn't have a more ideal basketball frame because he was absolutely the most skilled shooter and scorer I have seen and played against, and I have played against some great players.