Heritage Christian School may be small, but their boys’ basketball team made a big impact in the region by breaking the school record for most wins in a season. The Jaguars went 24-4 and won 3 of the 4 tournaments they competed in, and they played in the historic Hoosier Gym in Knightstown, Indiana.
With just 25 total boys in their middle school, the team consists of 15 players from the 6th-8th grades. But they didn’t shy away from playing larger public schools. After playing against schools such as Ohio County and Edmonson County, head coach Jeff Brigance said the Jaguars’ size gave them the element of surprise.
“It means a lot that we achieved this success,” he said. “We go into some of these big-time public schools and tell them we only have 25 middle school kids. Some teams kind of just laugh at you and think you’re not going to be very good. They think the game’s already won, and then we go in there and beat them on their home court.”
Brigance has been coaching for 16 years, and 12 of those years have been with Heritage Christian. He said his longevity has allowed him the blessing of being able to coach his son — who is now the athletic director and coach in Ohio County — his daughter, and his two grandsons. One of his grandsons is currently a 6th-grade starter on the team.
Brigance said the team set the goal to break the school record for wins at the beginning of the season. The hardworking and competitive nature of the squad helped them achieve it.
“A lot of the kids I had this year were so competitive,” he said. “They kept pushing and pushing. There are very competitive players on this team and great attitudes. Another thing about this team is that we are small physically. When we went up against some of the giant 8th-grade teams, we had to be really competitive.”
Assistant coach Bobby Goebel said that some of the kids on the team have experience playing travel basketball as well as being multi-sport athletes for travel and club teams. This hard work ethic, experience, and competitiveness helped the team out because the boys were used to the level of effort expected of them.
“We have some kids with experience,” he said. “We have a boy who has AAU experience. We have several boys who have competed in not just school sports, but in club sports as well where they travel and play on much larger stages at regional and national tournaments than we have here. That kind of pressure and work was expected out of them with those travel teams. To put pressure on them and to squeeze them for every ounce of effort, energy, and talent, they were used to it.”
The success of the team didn’t just stem from the talent on the court, as Brigance said the support from the parents, administration, and community kept the team moving forward.
Goebel has been with Heritage Christian for 4 years and is in his 3rd year as their assistant coach. He feels the team as a whole is like a family. Goebel’s son plays on the team as well, so the close-knit community and family connections make the team feel that much closer, he said.
“To have that kind of success with these boys is very meaningful,” he said. “There’s a family connection with the head coach, my son plays on the team so I have a family connection, and it’s a very close-knit school. It feels like a family more so than it does representing a larger institution, comparatively speaking.”
Basketball has been a big part of Goebel’s life since he was a kid. Between playing high school basketball himself and his father playing college basketball as well as coaching for Owensboro High School, the love of the game is in his blood, he said. Being a huge fan of the game, Goebel owned a copy of the 1987 film “Hoosiers,” based on the true story of a small-town basketball team going on to win a state championship in what is now known as Hoosier Gym. Goebel and Heritage Christian got to live out their own real-life movie as the small team got to play in Hoosier Gym on Dec. 9.
Lexie Holsclaw helped the team sign up to play at Hoosier Gym and scheduled their game against Bethesda Christian School. Before making the trip to Knightstown, Brigance and Goebel got the team together to watch the movie. He said that added more emotional depth to their game at Hoosier Gym. Although he thinks it probably meant more to Brigance and himself because they are lifelong fans of the movie, the memories that they made with and for the players were more important than the game itself.
“There was an emotional connection to the sport and to the gym,” he said. “You see a movie like that and it creates memories. We went up there to create memories with the boys. We know time is passing quickly, so it wasn’t so much about the game than it was about those relationships and making memories.”
He added, “In the end of the movie, it was like the game brought people together and gave them a common thing to root for, and that’s what playing there did for us as well. We kind of lived vicariously through the movie by playing in the gym and being together in the relationship aspect. That’s one of the reasons why families enjoy travel sports so much is to create those memories and a family atmosphere. With a small school like we have, it goes even further.”
The Jaguars beat Bethesda Christian 40-24. Brigance said that both the team and the fans enjoyed the weekend, and the experience was certainly a memorable one. After walking away with a win from a site that has lots of historical significance to the game of basketball, Brigance hopes this instilled the lesson of never giving up to the team. They had exemplified this grit throughout their season already, and playing at Hoosier Gym cemented their place as one of Brigance’s most hardworking, competitive, and determined teams he has ever coached, he said.
“Mostly for our team it was the idea not to quit,” he said. “Against some of these public teams, we would be behind at half, but we never quit. That’s the one thing I’m so gracious for in this team is that they’d get behind and wouldn’t quit. They’d keep fighting and pushing. We were down in several games this year against public schools, and we’d come back and win most of them. I’ve had parents and fans come up and tell me they enjoyed the season so much because the players never quit and they had great attitudes. I’ve coached a lot of teams. I probably got more enjoyment out of this year than I ever have.”
