For a high school coach, there aren’t many feelings that surpass winning a state championship.
As Johnny Carter stood in Gregory Gym, brimming with excitement, confidence and a feeling of completion, it didn’t even seem real. At just 24 years old, he’d gone from a player whose state championship dreams were broken to a coach who had just led his basketball team from tiny Kennard, Texas, to its first ever state championship in school history.
The year was 1967, and Carter, who had recently graduated from the University of Houston, was looking for a place to coach. Not only did he come with extensive knowledge of the X’s and O’s of the game of basketball, but had experience as a player too. Just five years prior, he was a star point guard for the Madisonville High Mustangs, leading them to numerous victories throughout his career, and earning him a scholarship to Lon Morris Junior College. Following his time there, he transferred to Houston to follow his dreams of being a sportscaster, calling the play by play for his beloved Chicago White Sox. However, as Carter acknowledges, God’s plan sometimes turns out much different than our own. Midway through, he decided to change his major to education/coaching, a decision that would forever change his life.
It all started with one missed shot. As he talks about in his phenomenal book, “The First Season”, as a junior he was extremely close to accomplishing his dreams of going to Austin, where the famed Texas state tournament was held. His Madisonville Mustangs had a chance to defeat Huntington, the well-known state champion from many previous seasons. However, in a gut-wrenching end to an already trying game, Carter missed a game winning jumper at the buzzer, promptly ending their season. However, as Carter, who is a man with a positive, “half-full” kind of attitude would say, there’s a positive for every negative. Despite the fact that missing that final shot was hard to swallow, it prompted him to become a coach. And in the future, he wouldn’t just become a coach, but a state-champion coach at that, and mentor to many young men throughout a 30+ year coaching career.
The job at Kennard, a small east Texas town in the Davy Crockett National forest, was filled with opportunity, but many challenges that came along with it. To start, funds were a major issue as Kennard didn’t have much money to pay the coaches, much less purchase additional/new equipment. In addition, it was the first year of integration for the school, which had the potential to present additional roadbumps, especially for the basketball team, the pride and joy of the town. Not to mention, he had no prior coaching experience, so he’d have to learn on the job.
Even with the odds stacked against him, Carter walked into Kennard’s school building on that late August day as one of the biggest men in town. After all, without football, basketball took center stage in the town that currently has a population around 340. Left and right, people were giving him encouragement, and showing him who his starting five should be, although Carter continued to keep with his ideal of “whoever works hardest in practice, that’s who’s gonna be playing in the game.” Much to his surprise, as the team continued to practice hard over the next few months before the season opener, the five who he’d been told would be his starters did emerge as his most reliable players. With a Texas town in it’s first year of integration, especially a town where the basketball team was so beloved, there were many fears as to what would happen when integration finally took place on their court.
As well as the reaction from the fans, who, for as long as they’d known Kennard basketball, it’d been an all-white team. However, with a new coach, there was change, and this was by far the biggest change for Tiger basketball in years. Much to those folk’s dismay, hardly any problems ever arose, thanks to the team itself, who showed just how much of a positive this change could be, as they formed a team built with fearlessness and the ability to take charge, working together to reach new heights like no Kennard team had done before. This 1967 team was winning, before they even won their first game.
When the season tipped off, the white fans were on one side of the gym, and the black fans on the other. But as the season continued forward, something amazing began to occur, the crowd began moving towards the middle of the stands, and before long, they were sitting side by side cheering on their team.
“Our team brought the black and white communities together,” Carter recently told 360 Sports.
That starting five from 1967, Haywood Henderson, Roy Harrison, James “Nubbin” Pilkington, Herman Myers, and Fred Pilkington, led the Tigers to victory after victory, behind the impressive athletic abilities of the entire team.
Of all the moments of success early in that season, the Madisonville Tournament still sticks out to Carter as most memorable. It was the first time he got to coach in his hometown gym, and also provided a chance for the team to bond, and for the new black players to know they were accepted. Instead of staying at a motel, Carter’s parents welcomed his 12-man team to their house, just minutes from Madisonville High, where the tournament would be played. There they enjoyed some of his mother’s cooking, made pallets and slept side by side on the floor, and really became a closer team. Not to mention, they went head to head against one of the state’s best in Snook High, losing, but leaving with a newfound sense of confidence.
The loss also gave this close knit squad strong motivation, as they went on a 20 game win streak, and in Carter’s words, “became an exceptionally good team.”
But, as every team in Texas at that era knew, you could win as much in the regular season as anybody, but unless you could bring your best game come playoff time, the season was over. Carter’s team knew that fact full well coming into the bi-dsitrict round, in which they took on Anderson, a team who’d beaten the Tigers pretty convincingly the year before. The team once again returned to Madisonville for a challenging showdown which saw Kennard roll to a victory, punching their ticket to the Kilgore regional tournament.
As the regional tournament began, every team who walked onto the court at Masters Gym knew what was on the line. One ticket to Austin. A spot in the coveted UIL State Championships.
With seven talented teams, each was vying for that one first round bye, which Carter’s team got by the luck of the draw, literally. Each of the seven coaches whose teams had just punched their ticket to the regionals, held at Kilgore College, met up to see who would earn the first round bye, meaning their team only had to win two games to make it to state. Carter was chosen to draw his team’s number first. To this day he calls it a miracle that he drew that lucky number 7, earning his team the bye.
Carter’s team was more than prepared heading into their first game of the regionals against Frankston. and most important game of the season thanks to Carter and Kennard resident Curtis Baker’s detailed scouting report. It’s important to note that coaches like Carter back in the 60’s and 70’s had a much tougher job of assembling scouting reports for their teams than they do today, especially when teams would be traveling from another region. The reason? Technology. The founding of the Internet revolutionized scouting reports, as all of a sudden coaches had more information than they needed, right at their fingertips. Carter acknowledges not only the internet’s improvement for scouting, but also recruiting, as he learned during his time as a college coach. They didn’t have the kind of access to recruiting databases and other software to find the best players. Instead, a lot of it was done by word of mouth or in person. In fact, for tiny high school teams such as Kennard, who were barely known outside of the region they played in, getting to the state championship wasn’t just a cool experience, it was often their only chance to show what they could do in front of college coaches. Following this 1967 season, Fred Pilkington earned a scholarship to play hoops for East Texas Baptist University, becoming the first, but not the last of Carter’s Kennard players to go onto the college level.
Getting back to the regionals, Carter’s Tigers continued to do what they’d done all season when they compiled a 42-4 record, beating a talented Frankston team, 71-53. Franskton was a well-established program, who’d previously won a state title and were the favorite coming into that regional semifinal. However, that’s the reason the games are played out on the court and not on paper, as the underdog can rise to the occasion on any given day and pull out the victory, as Kennard did, moving onto the championship, but keeping the famous, mentality many great coaches instill, focusing solely on the game ahead, knowing that they had to win that semifinal game or there wasn’t going to be a final game. Only one team stood in their way. But not for long, although the win against the challenging Avinger Indians didn’t come as easily as the first victory had.
Walking into Masters Gym, the home of Kilgore Junior College basketball, Carter was hyped up and so was his team. Behind the balanced attack and lock-down defense that had gotten them this far, they were looking to win not only this game, but all the games after it until they could finally be called state champs. More than their skills, their drive and will to win was what propelled them.
However, they’d need shooting to beat Avinger, which they didn’t have on the particular night, with their legs tired from the game earlier this morning. Heading into the half after shooting just 26% in the second quarter, Carter tried to turn around what was setting up to be a disaster, especially because they were losing at the half. But as much as he tried, it wasn’t working as his team, who'd erased so many deficits throughout that season, couldn’t manage to overcome this one, as they headed into the fourth and final quarter down 42-35. With morale low, and the game on the line, this is where Carter’s phenomenal ability to get the best out of his players, one of the key reasons why he’d go onto many more years of great coaching, emerged, as he implemented a full court press and put some confidence back into the hearts and minds of his players. They made several stops on defense and generated multiple turnovers using the press, a style Carter would go onto use for the rest of his head coaching career at McLennan Community College and Madisonville High. However, that season, he hadn’t practiced it with his team at all, and wasn’t sure how they’d fair as he explained it to them in the huddle coming out of a timeout.
“It was brand new for them,” Carter told 360 Sports on a recent phone call. “I put on a makeshift press in the timeout. It worked pretty well for not having practiced with it. It really saved us.”
Responding like the champions they were, it saved them from an inevitable loss, and was the backbone for an inspiring comeback. Shot by shot, his team raced back into the ballgame, with the crowd behind them, culminating when Herman Myers swished a 12 footer with 15 seconds to play, giving Kennard the lead. For good.
As excited as they were about this victory, they were more excited about where they were going. Austin. It was the place every high school hoopster dreamed of going one day, as the prestigious state tournament meant everything to these schools, especially small ones like Kennard, who were sure to be followed to Austin by hundreds of loyal supporters, including Carter’s parents, who came to as many games as they could, with Carter’s father, John Dean, firing up the Kennard faithful with chants and cheers throughout the ballgames.
Once in Austin, it was like a scene from the classic basketball film, “Hoosiers” as his team of boys from the Piney Woods of east Texas had never seen a gym as big as Texas’ Gregory gym in their lives, not to mention the extravagant hotel and fine dining that awaited them. It didn’t seem real. Not only to his players, but to Carter himself. It was the first time he’d be a part of the action, and not just a fan in the stands.
Their first game against Avoca saw the Tigers settle into their typical style and pace of play, getting the ball into the post and then often kicking it back out for deep-range shots, many of which were taken by the team’s sharpshooter, Herman Myers. Despite the size of the gym or the amount of people in the stands, Kennard played solid basketball, winning by twelve. It was the perfect birthday present for the young coach, who’d just turned 24.
“Only one more game,and we’re in the state championship,” Carter kept thinking to himself.
One more game against an extremely challenging opponent that is. Booker T. Washington High out of Plainview was perhaps one of the best rebounding teams in Class B, and for good reason. But Kennard also had three great rebounders in Henderson, Pilkington, and Harrison, which set up a great matchup to watch in this semifinal round.
It’s important to note that a piece of history was being made in this game, as Booker T. Washington High out of Plainview (now known as Plainview High) became the first all-black team to play in the UIL state championships. Just the year before, Texas Western (now UTEP) had rocked the NCAA Basketball world by starting an all-black starting lineup in the 1966 National Championship. In a statement of disgust, Kentucky head coach Adolph Rupp, who kept his team all-white, said, “No black team is ever going to beat us.” He was forced to eat his words, as Texas Western came away with the inspired 52-45 victory.
In the locker room before the game, Carter remembers telling his team that Plainiew’s head coach was most likely using the fact that they were making history, and the only-all black team at state, similar to Texas Western the year before, to instill a strong sense of motivation into his squad. Not to mention, they had phenomenal athletes, like Lawrence McCutcheon, who would go onto achieve national fame when he emerged as a star running back for the Los Angeles Rams from 1972-1979.
However, as good as Plainview was on the boards, their shooting wasn’t up to its typical high quality and Kennard played at the highest level they could, no doubt the adrenaline giving them a boost knowing what was on the line. They won the game 77-67.
They were headed for the state final game.
With a state championship on the line, the 24 year old head coach, prepared his team for yet another game, the third in three days, but his Tigers wouldn’t give up. Not when they were this close.
Krum High was one of those teams who’d always been in the mix for a state title, but never quite gotten that far. Without a doubt, these were two teams who wanted this victory. Bad. In a game that went back and forth, but saw the jumping ability Carter had worked so much on at the beginning of the season emerge, Kennard broke down Krum’s zone defense on their way to a huge win, most likely the biggest in Kennard high school history, with the final score being 51-47.
As the beloved, and now state championship team, and their fans celebrated this success, two men, one black, one white, walked out of the crowd and hoisted Harrison onto their shoulders, a sign of ultimate victory. What was even more inspiring about this particular moment was how it portrayed this town’s newfound unity behind their newly-integrated basketball team. In fact, those two guys specifically had resisted the integration, thinking it best if the school just stayed separate, like it always had in Kennard. However, as the season went on, and the town came behind their team, both of their hearts had been changed, resulting in that final picture of triumph and physical proof that integration was a step in the right direction, even if some weren’t buying it at first.
Carter simply couldn’t believe it, much less the fans and players. It all seemed like a dream. But, no, it’d really happened. A young, first year head coach had taken a team, integrated for the first year, from a small, little known east Texas town, to statewide fame as the Class B state champs. In fact, in the process, Carter became the youngest coach ever to guide a UIL Basketball team to a state championship victory. Their mission all season long had finally been accomplished. However, for Carter, and his returning players, it was just the beginning of what they were setting out to accomplish.
In addition, Carter’s strong faith in Christ was what he considers one of the driving forces in his success, as he went to the bible often in times of stress or worry, and put his full faith in the Lord, knowing that winning this first state championship in 1967 wasn’t just do to his own efforts, but really an answered prayer for confidence, strength and teamwork.
Note to the reader: This is the first part of a two part series we’re planning to do on this hall of fame coach, who not only saw success at Kennard but at the college level also. So make sure to be looking for more on Carter’s amazing experiences as he became one of Texas’ most well-known basketball coaches. He authored “The First Season”, which goes into this story in more detail, with excellent description and anecdotes from that first year as Kennard’s head coach. If you’re interested in a tale of sports, overcoming the odds, and storytelling that will keep you on the edge of your seat, THIS IS IT! In addition, he recently wrote “The Pressing Champions” which covers his next three years in Kennard, leading them to two more state titles. Check it out at http://www.coachjohnnycarter.com/. In addition, he’ll be selling his books at both the girls and boys UIL Basketball State Championships in March.
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