Obnoxious father coaches Henry County to record loss
By Howie Baker
Henry County’s boys’
basketball team opened its season at home Wednesday night against highly ranked
archrival North Randolph in the Dollar General Classic, with both teams playing
for bragging rights and the Dollar General Trophy, awarded to each year’s
winner.
The first half was hotly
contested with several lead changes, until the last four minutes of the second
period when North Randolph scored eight unanswered points to go into halftime
with a 44-40 lead over the Cavaliers.
Despite the great effort
by an overmatched Henry County team, Mike Stuckey, father of Henry County
junior-varsity forward Kyle Stuckey, berated HC head coach Rick Morton the
entire first half. The elder Stuckey sat behind the home team’s bench and
complained non-stop about the offense and defense Morton was running as well as
the substitutions that were being made.
Coach Morton tried to keep
his cool and ignore Stuckey when taking his team to the locker room at
halftime. The straw that finally broke the camel’s back came when Stuckey
unsuccessfully tried to get the crowd to join in on his chant, “Morton
sucks!!!…Morton sucks!!!”
Coach Morton fired back at
Stuckey in front of the entire crowd, “Why don’t you come down here and coach
the second half, a-hole!” Stuckey, not to be outdone, retorted, “I’ll do a
helluva lot better job than you!” He then proceeded to the locker room to
address the team as head coach. Coach Morton took a seat in the stands with the
other fans.
Once the second half
started, it didn’t take long for the game to get out of hand. Stuckey’s first
mistake was starting his son at point guard, giving him his first varsity
playing time. Kyle Stuckey proceeded in turning the ball over his first six
times down the court, which turned into six easy lay-ups for the Rhinos. Poor
Kyle did just as awful on defense, playing man-to-man against one of the state’s
best players, Leevon Prince.
When HC did start getting
the ball down the floor by refusing to pass to Kyle, Mike Stuckey would call
timeouts to try and set up a play where his son could shoot the ball. Most of
Kyle’s shots were blocked, and half the shots he did get off were air balls.
Kyle finished the night 0-22 shooting (0-19 from three point range), 0 assists,
0 rebounds, and 0 steals.
Despite the problems Kyle
had, his father refused to substitute someone in for him. Kyle at one point
even faked an injury so his father would have to pull him. Still Mike Stuckey
refused. “Get on out there, boy!” was his response as he rotated other players
into the game, trying to find that magical combination that would bring HC back
into it.
Without anyone to
challenge their shots, North Randolph continued to run up points, setting state
records for scoring and field goal percentage.
After what seemed like an
eternity, the game finally ended, with the final score North Randolph 346, Henry
County 44. The Rhinos shot 94% from the field and had two players in triple
figures: Leevon Prince with 142, James Harrison with 106.
Did Mike Stuckey learn a
lesson from his half as head basketball coach? “Sure,” said Stuckey, “Morton dug
us a hole before halftime we couldn’t get out of. If I ever get to coach HC
again, next time I will take over at the start of the game so we can take it to
them from the beginning!”
