Larry Fleming: The Point Of Going To Oak Hill Is Basketball

  • Sunday, February 7, 2016
  • Larry Fleming
Oak Hill Academy basketball coach Steve Smith, who led his second-ranked team to two impressive victories in the McCallie Classic this weekend, has taken the Warriors to great heights during his 31-year tenure in Mouth of Wilson, Va. One word best describes him. Legend.
Oak Hill Academy basketball coach Steve Smith, who led his second-ranked team to two impressive victories in the McCallie Classic this weekend, has taken the Warriors to great heights during his 31-year tenure in Mouth of Wilson, Va. One word best describes him. Legend.
photo by Dennis Norwood

Steve Smith, a 60-year-old basketball coaching legend, didn’t make Oak Hill Academy a household name by himself.

Steve Isner and his son, Chuck, were responsible for laying the groundwork in the 1970s.

Smith, in his 31-year stint coaching the Warriors, who competed this weekend in the inaugural McCallie Classic and packed the house both nights, has built on the Isner’s bold idea and no prep school in the country is better known for its basketball program.

Unless you head into the worlds of big-time college and NBA.

Montverde Academy, which beat Oak Hill for the 2014-15 national title has closed the gap on Smith’s fabled Warriors. In fact, Montverde won the past three national championships – it clipped Oak Hill for last season’s title – and just recently produced Ben Simmons, who has made an immediate impact on college basketball at LSU.

However, Montverde and all the others realize that the blueprint for success originatedin that obscure little hamlet in Mouth of Wilson, Va.

And what Montverde must do is duplicate its success over the long haul.

Like Oak Hill has done over three decades.

Chattanooga’s Hamilton Heights Christian Academy has embarked on a blossoming venture it hopes will someday come close to what Oak Hill has accomplished.

Coach Zach Ferrell’s Hawks are now nationally ranked, have a Nike sponsorship and played Oak Hill in the final game of the classic. The Hawks lost Saturday, 64-47, and have never beaten the Warriors, although they came within 60-55 in mid-December.

Duke Stone founded Hamilton Heights and is working hard to put his team among the elite basketball programs in America. Progress is being made.

In order to clear major hurdles along the way, the Hawks have to one day – somehow – beat Oak Hill.

Then, the Hawks can shoot for loftier goals.

Stone coached basketball in Florida and talked to many acquaintances there when he was devising the plan to build a power program that Hamilton Heights would follow. Justin Harden, at The Rock in Gainesville, Fla, was a great source of information for Stone.

Still, he gives Smith and Oak Hill a lot of credit for what they’ve done.

“They set the standard for everyone,” Stone said. “I have a lot of respect for coach Oak Hill. They have the premier program in America. Coach Smith is a legend and it’s an honor to play against them.”

But there are many differences between the two schools.

Hamilton Heights looks for international players as part of the school’s mission program. Oak Hill goes after the very best players American players, with only a hint of out-of-the-country talent on this year’s team.

Stone acknowledges the Hawks have made tremendous strides in the last five years, rating the program now at “a seven or eight” on a scale of zero to 10.

Just like at the college level, when a second-ranked teams plays at 24th-ranked team, there is a huge gap between the two squads. The same thing holds true for the prep level.

“There’s a lot of difference between Oak Hill and Hamilton Heights,” Stone said.

Robert Isner looked to athletics as the best way to market OHA. Football, he thought, was not the way to go because of prohibitive costs. So, he thought basketball would do the trick. Isner dispatched his son to New York City to lure some good players to the little Virginia community with the funny name.

It didn’t take long for the ambitious endeavor to take off.

In 1970, Oak Hill, a Baptist affiliated school with an enrollment of about 160 boys and girls in grades 8 through 12, played 23 games. The Warriors lost 20 times.

Four years later, the Warriors went 27-3.

Boom!

A hoops powerhouse was born.

Nowadays, each player that chooses to play at Oak Hill – few find any reason to not to go there – has already reached elite status in the sport. Smith and his staff that includes former Warrior standout and NBA player Cory Alexander, go about the business of honing the skills of their players.

Oak Hill arrived in Chattanooga with a depleted roster – only eight players dressed for the two games – but they weren’t scrubs. Among the available hoopsters were Braxton Key, who is headed to Alabama, Khadim Sy (Virginia Tech) and Rodney Miller (Miami of Florida).

Back home, due to a suspension, was 6-foot-7-inch Mario Kegler, who has signed with Mississippi State, the same school where Hamilton Heights’ 6-10 post Abdulhakim Ado plans to play.

The biggest absence of all is 6-10 Harry Giles III, the country’s top-rated prospect who has signed with perennial national title contender Duke. Giles suffered a season-ending ACL injury before the Hawks even worked up a sweat in the regular season.

Giles is the type student-athlete who wants to attend Oak Hill.

There are basically two reasons for finding Mouth of Wilson the map: hone their basketball skills and, if necessary, improve their academics and achieve passing college entrance test scores.

Giles didn’t spend much time with Smith, but he wanted to. Guys like Carmelo Anthony, Kevin Durant, Rajon Rondo, Jerry Stackhouse, Josh Smith and Rod Strickland did. They are among 28 players Oak Hill sent to play in college and the NBA.

Unlike the Isners in the early days, Smith no longer has to recruit players.

They come to him.

The fact that Oak Hill plays in tiny 400-seat Turner Gymnasium is not a problem. In fact, it’s one of the school’s main draws. There’s a lot of tradition there. A ton of college recruiters know how to find the place. Oak Hill has since well over a hundred players to college on basketball scholarships.

What a treat it would have been for Chattanooga hoop fans to see Giles perform with this Oak Hill team that still causes a buzz at every stop on its national tour that will likely lead to another spot in the Dick’s National Championship tournament in New York. The Warriors lost one of 48 games last season – the national title contest at Madison Square Garden.

“If we had Harry,” Smith has often said, “we’d be hard to beat.”

Even without Harry, Oak Hill has lost only once this season, that a 70-67 decision to 22 Feet Academy, out of Greenville, S.C.

After Saturday night’s win over the Hawks, the Warriors drove back to Mouth of Wilson with a 30-game winning streak tucked safely in their sneakers.

Smith, raised in Wilmore, Ky., was in banking before basketball. Larry Davis was Oak Hill head coach in 1983 and persuaded Smith to give coaching a try. Two years, Smith left and Smith took over.

Since then, Smith, who has been nominated for the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, has captured eight national championships – the team’s combined records in those title seasons is 289-4 – and never lost more than seven games in a season; had four undefeated teams; led teams from 2000-02 to 65 consecutive victories and was 1,013-65 when he walked to the sidelines in McCallie’s Sports and Activities Center on Saturday night.

Make that 1,014-65 now.

Smith won his 1,000th game on Dec. 29, 2015.

“He’s a great coach,” said junior guard Lindell Wigginton, who hogged the classic spotlight by scoring 46 points in two games and winning the dunk and 3-point shooting contests. “He knows a lot of basketball.”

Attending Oak Hill is no cakewalk. The tuition is about $33,000 annually and even though many students and most players get full-aid financial packages, based on need, but everyone still has to pay a minimum of $1,500.

Students wear uniforms to class – no ball caps. They can’t leave campus unless accompanied by a staff member. They are required to attend Sunday services at Young’s Chapel.

At weekend socials, rules prohibit “sitting in laps and making out.” Substance abuse gets you an automatic expulsion.

Students cannot have cars. They can have computers, but no personal Internet connections. They can have phones, but there is no cell service in Mouth of Wilson. When Hamilton Heights played there last season, Ferrell had to drive an hour before getting a signal strong enough to call back to Chattanooga.

Still, the national pipeline of basketball talent is flowing freely into and out of Mouth of Wilson and shows no sign of drying up anytime soon.

Key, for instance, played at Christ Presbyterian Academy last season, helping his team to the TSSAA state tournament in nearby Murfreesboro, and was used to the hustle and bustle of living in Nashville.

The night life.

Country music.

The Titans.

The Predators.

There’s nothing like that in Mouth of Wilson.

“It’s definitely a lot different than Nashville,” Key said.

So, other than classwork, what is there to do there?

“Basketball,” he said.

That’s the point.

(E-mail Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @larryfleming44)

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