GRETNA, Neb. — This isn’t a narrative about highschool basketball. It’s not a few treasured coach who died halfway by a season. It’s not a narrative of redemption, sorrow or achievement.
It’s about togetherness. This can be a story about neighborhood and a crew that has revealed, by its resilience and combat to honor a misplaced chief, what the very best of sports activities appears to be like like.
Wednesday evening at Pinnacle Financial institution Enviornment in Lincoln, Neb., Gretna Excessive Faculty will play a first-round recreation within the Class A boys state match towards Millard North.
Brad Feeken coached the Dragons to win. He coached them with a ardour recognized round Nebraska. His demise at age 48 on Dec. 30, 2023, after a battle of greater than two years with neuroendocrine most cancers marked a brand new chapter for his gamers.
Gretna begins 5 seniors and brings two others off the bench. Landon Pokorski, Alex Wilcoxson, Alec Wilkins, Kade Cook dinner, Joey Vieth, Chase Doble and Avery Schendt have already secured their legacies. This week issues little for the way they’ll be remembered — and nonetheless, it means a lot for them to reach on this place on the state match after months of ache.
On the morning Feeken died, Gretna’s gamers and coaches gathered at their highschool. They felt extra outfitted to maneuver ahead as a bunch fairly than individually. The schedule confirmed a recreation later that day within the quarterfinals of the Metro Convention vacation match.
The Dragons selected to play. 9 hours later in an emotionally charged gymnasium, Pokorski sank a game-winning buzzer-beater. He pointed a finger skyward as teammates mobbed him. Pokorski believed that if he lofted the ball good, Feeken would assist it discover the web.
Couldn’t have written it higher. #Gretna (@gretnabball) upsets Papio South on a buzzer-beater by way of senior @LandonPokorski simply over 12 hours after #Dragons head coach Brad Feeken handed away 🏀🐉💚
@GEHSGriffins @WOWT6News#nebpreps #ForFeek pic.twitter.com/TMu09zUnw9— Grace Boyles (@GraceBBoyles) December 31, 2023
From that second, the boys confirmed the best way. As Feeken’s situation worsened final fall, dad and mom, academics and supporters in Gretna ready to carry the crew up.
It has unfolded simply the alternative — with these seniors inspiring a neighborhood looking for solutions.
“They only maintain exhibiting up,” mentioned Travis Lightle, the Gretna Public Colleges superintendent. “They only present up. They’re there for one another. With how they deal with the followers, the little youngsters, they are saying, ‘That is what (Feeken) would need us to do.’ And while you watch them, they’re enjoying precisely how he would need.
“They’re not indignant. They’re not bitter. They only proceed to do the fitting issues.”
My view on Gretna basketball is skewed. I’m biased. Too near it, too invested.
I resisted for months to the touch this story professionally. However final week, one thing modified. I’ll get to that.
First, some background. I’ve lived in Gretna with my spouse Shannon since 2005. Each of our youngsters have been born right here. They’ve grown up as a part of this swelling suburb southwest of Omaha that’s nonetheless sufficiently small to foster an attachment.
Ten years in the past, I coached T-ball with Invoice Heard. His daughter was 6. Mine was 7. A longtime assistant on Feeken’s Gretna bench, Heard took over the basketball crew when his previous faculty teammate grew too sick to teach.
He has mourned the lack of his finest pal for the previous 9 weeks. Heard additionally runs the Gretna softball program, and he plans to teach each sports activities as his two youngsters progress by highschool.
Feeken gained two state titles in 21 years as the pinnacle coach, however he impacted extra lives in Gretna as a seventh-grade studying trainer. My daughter discovered about life in his classroom 4 years in the past. Few academics meant extra to her.
My son attended his basketball camps. Feeken’s groups embodied his energetic persona. This piece written by Dirk Chatelain superbly captures the Feeken spirit.
When he acquired sick, the neighborhood rallied behind the coach, his spouse, Jenny, and their youngsters, Rylinn, 13, Maylee, 11, and John, who turned 7 final month.
This was the scene two weeks in the past for an occasion put collectively on quick discover. If there had been room, I’ve little doubt extra folks than dwell in all of Gretna would have proven as much as assist Feeken and his household. pic.twitter.com/0dobg200TO
— Mitch Sherman (@mitchsherman) December 30, 2023
In his remaining weeks, Feeken related with Brad Stevens, normal supervisor and former coach of his beloved Boston Celtics. Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg and Creighton’s Greg McDermott voiced their admiration for Feeken.
As phrase unfold of Feeken’s demise, my household, like many others, felt known as on Dec. 30 to attend the Dragons’ Metro Convention match recreation. In that health club at Omaha Creighton Prep, the second of silence and pregame tribute to Feeken added to a temper not like something I’ve skilled — a mixture of disbelief, heartbreak and resolve.
In a high nook of the seating space, Hoiberg watched.
“It truthfully was one of many extra particular video games that I’ve witnessed in particular person,” the Nebraska coach advised me this week.
Gretna jumped to a 15-point lead at halftime towards Papillion-LaVista South, then noticed it disappear as the load of the second took maintain.
“We’ll by no means play in a recreation like that once more,” Pokorski mentioned. “It nonetheless hasn’t totally hit me how onerous that day was, how onerous that recreation was.”
When Pokorski drove to the baseline within the final seconds, with Gretna down 48-47, Hoiberg predicted out loud that the shot would fall.
A city held its breath.
“To see the response of the crew, these guys all hugging out on the courtroom and crying, I do know they did it for Brad, what he meant for these youngsters,” Hoiberg mentioned. “It was emotional. I acquired a tear in my eye.”
He was removed from alone.
The Dragons with Feeken daughters Rylinn, 13 (left) and Maylee, 11, after Gretna’s 65-63 win at Kearney to clinch a berth within the state match. (Courtesy of Angie Wilcoxson)
The tears didn’t cease on that Saturday evening. 9 days after Feeken died, Rylinn, his older daughter, delivered a tribute to her father at his memorial service.
Heard eulogized Feeken. Pokorski and Wilcoxson spoke to his legacy. For years, they mentioned, Feeken preached to them concerning the significance of “doing onerous issues.”
Three of Gretna’s 5 losses this season got here within the first 18 days of January. It was a tough time.
“Basketball was secondary,” Heard mentioned. “However basketball was actually essential as a result of it’s the place the place all of us acquired to be collectively. It was evident that the children wanted it. I wanted it.”
Feeken famously left motivational messages on sticky notes for his gamers to search out. In January, Jenny Feeken took his place, sending textual content messages to the seven Gretna seniors.
They obtain snippets from “Pound the Stone: 7 Classes to Develop Grit on the Path to Mastery,” a e book that Jenny is studying with Rylinn and Maylee.
The frequency of her messages elevated final month as match time neared. These days, she’s reminded the seniors that they’re prepared for no matter life presents.
“Every thing has been onerous for them,” she mentioned. “It helps me. They’re telling me that they prefer it, so I hope it helps them, too.”
The Dragons gained 9 consecutive video games earlier than a three-point defeat within the regular-season finale towards top-ranked Bellevue West. The loss knocked Gretna from a number place in state-tournament qualifying district play and arrange a Feb. 27 journey to Kearney Excessive Faculty in central Nebraska.
In Kearney’s hornet’s nest of a 3,000-seat health club, the trail of this season modified for Gretna. Basketball got here roaring again to the forefront. One other chapter started. It was Feeken’s form of evening. And once more, the Dragons confirmed their energy.
Late within the district remaining, crowd noise shook the ground. Gretna gained 65-63 to safe a visit to the state match as a Kearney halfcourt heave on the buzzer hit the rim.
Conceivably, no crew within the state might have dealt with that wild setting in addition to Gretna. Within the celebration, Rylinn and Maylee minimize the ultimate strands of the web from the edges. The nets went again to Gretna with the women.
“Simply a kind of moments that’s a lot larger than a ball recreation,” Heard mentioned.
Likewise, Heard mentioned, the state match usually elicits exaggerated feelings.
Gretna, in seasons previous, has felt the postseason stress. Final yr in Lincoln, Millard North beat the Dragons within the semifinal spherical. Officers waved off a Pokorski bucket within the remaining seconds. Video of the play exhibits Feeken, stomping towards the motion earlier than Millard North held on to win 54-52.
The identical Mustangs eradicated Gretna two years in the past within the semifinals and in 2021 district play. The Dragons’ historical past towards Millard North looms of their minds, Pokorski mentioned.
However stress for Gretna? Not an opportunity with this crew.
“If you’ve been by what we’ve been by off the courtroom,” mentioned Pokorski, the unflappable level guard set to play at Southwest Minnesota State, “it tends to make basketball a bit simpler. What we have been supposed to do that yr, we already did.
“Our function was method larger than basketball.”
(High photograph of Invoice Heard and Gretna’s 5 senior starters (seated), courtesy of Nicole Stuchlik)