Trey Snide talks about last nights local high school basketball game between Crossroads Christian and Kerr Vance Academy. Crossroads picked up their first win of the season in that contest. Two players were also named WIZS Players of the Week: Javonte Waverly of Henderson Collegiate and Cameron Stancil of Vance Charter School received the honor for the week of Jan. 15th.
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Hosts Trey Snide and Ron Noel talk with Carolina Panthers play by play announcer Mick Mixon about the 2020 season and look ahead to 2021. Mixon gave insight to the quarterback situation and how 2020 was a unique season due to Covid 19. Mixon feels the Panthers are heading into the right direction for 2021 and praised the work the coaching staff is doing but also stressed the importance of finding the right general manager to replace Marty Hurney who was fired from the position this season. Also discussed was Granville Central High School’s record setting victory over Warren County on Wednesday night and a preview of tonight’s broadcast of the Kerr Vance Academy vs. Crossroads Christian basketball game beginning at 6:45 on WIZS.
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Long-time high school basketball coach and Vance County native Wilton Baskett died Saturday. He was 62.
Baskett retired in March 2020 after 37 years of coaching and teaching, much of that time with Vance County Schools. Baskett was head basketball coach at Northern Vance High School and won his 400th game with the Vance County Vipers last season.
A graveside service will be held at 1 p.m. on Jan. 14, 2021 at Jones Chapel Baptist Church in Norlina. A viewing will be from noon to 4 p.m. on Jan. 13, 2021 in the chapel of Davis-Royster Funeral Home in Henderson. He was born in Vance County to Almorine Brandon and the late Nathaniel Baskett. Survivors, in addition to his mother, are children Wilton E. Baskett II and Amy L. Baskett and their mother, Linda R. Perry.
Friends and colleagues remembered Baskett during Monday’s Town Talk. He was a friend and mentor to many throughout his 30-plus years of coaching, including Joseph Sharrow and Chad Wilson, current athletic director and men’s basketball coach, respectively, of Vance County High School. Baskett’s son, Wilton E. Baskett II, joined the program and said his father loved the game of basketball. Just as importantly, he loved that the game could expose young people to much more beyond high school, from playing college ball to being a successful adult.
L-R Wil, Amy, Coach. Family, a father’s day meal at a nearby restaurant. Selfie photo by Amy Baskett
Wilson told Baskett’s son that he would work to carry on Coach Baskett’s legacy on and off the court. “Your dad was way more than just a coach to me,” Wilson said to the younger Baskett. Wilson was a player for Coach Baskett at Northern Vance High School, and said that he was a positive male figure in his life when he needed one. “It’s just been a wonderful blessing on my life,” Wilson said, to have worked with Coach Baskett. “More than anything,” Wilson continued, “for putting faith in me. Wilson graduated from Northern Vance and went on to play at Louisburg College and Livingstone College. Wilson credits Coach Baskett for giving him the confidence to go beyond high school and then to come back to become a coach himself.
Wilson took over as head coach of the Vipers following Baskett’s retirement. He coached at Vance-Granville Community College for three years before returning to his high school alma mater to be a varsity assistant and coach of the JV team.
Now athletic director for Vance County High School, Joseph Sharrow was athletic director for Baskett’s cross-town rival Southern Vance. “I have nothing but respect…for Wilton Baskett and his wonderful family,” Sharrow said. To be able to remember him “as a friend and former colleague is an honor.”
Sharrow recalled when the two high schools played each other in the 2018 conference final. “He must have gotten them in the gym over Christmas because “they went on a tear in January,” Sharrow said of that Northern Vance team. “Little did we know it would be the last time the two schools would play” each other, he said. The following year the two schools were consolidated to create Vance County High School. Sharrow became athletic director and Baskett the men’s basketball coach, a relationship they shared for two years before Baskett retired.
Baskett’s 400th win came as coach of the Vance County Vipers. When he retired in March, he had accumulated 402 wins. Win 400 came in a matchup with East Chapel Hill High School on Feb. 4, 2020.
More story below. Click Play for TownTalk Tribute to Coach Baskett.
Sharrow last spoke with Baskett in November and said his friend and colleague seemed to be enjoying retirement. “It was great to be able to talk with him,” he added. The somewhat unusual relationship between Baskett and Sharrow – first as opponents of inter-county rivals, then as colleagues working together to bring the two schools’ programs together under a single county high school – made for a winning combination. The Vipers won a conference championship in their first year, Sharrow said. Add to that the 400-victory milestone also was great, but Sharrow was quick to add that Baskett wasn’t looking for individual attention. “He (coached) because he loved the kids. He knew he had a gift for making a difference in people’s lives and I think that just says a lot about Coach Baskett.” For everybody else, achieving that 400th win was an enormous milestone, Sharrow continued. “For him, it was just another day at the job. That was the kind of guy he was.”
David Hicks was athletic director at Northern Vance during the time that Baskett was head coach. Wilton had a system for basketball,” Hicks recalled during an interview on Monday. “He had a knack for being able to get guys to buy in to what he wanted to do,” he added. “He was demanding of his players and students in a good way.”
Greg Ackles coached the Southern Vance team that faced Baskett’s squad in that conference final in 2018. Now the coach at Wake Forest High School, Ackles spoke with Trey Snide on Monday’s Sports Talk. Asked about a favorite memory of Coach Baskett, Ackles said: “The best thing was also the most frustrating thing, and that was coaching against him.” As a coach, you have to believe what you do is going to work, he added, saying that Coach Baskett stuck to his philosophy of running a few plays but running them well. To this day, Ackles said that Northern-Southern matchup to claim the conference title is still the best game he’s been a part of as a coach.
More story below. Click Play for SportsTalk Tribute to Coach Baskett.
Was his father tough? “He could see more in you than sometimes you saw in yourself,” Baskett said of his father. “His goal was to bring the best out in you because he saw the best in people. He saw your potential and I think tough meant that you still had work to do…tough was if he expected something out of you or if he expects you to be able to do something. He was tough on you because he knew you were capable…he wanted you to believe in yourself.”
But for all his toughness, Coach Baskett did a lot off the court to help his players continue to play after high school. He helped prepare highlight reels and more, Hicks said.
One “extra” that Baskett did was take a group of young men to Catawba College every summer for basketball camp, Hicks said. “He had kids falling out of the ceiling wanting to go to camp…He would have open gym for try outs and you couldn’t get in. There would be 75 guys in there on all six courts.”
The “Wilton System” paid off over the years. Baskett’s teams won five regular season conference titles, six conference tournament championships. He received conference Coach of the Year honors three times, the most recent being 2018, the year his Northern Vance High Vikings topped rival Southern Vance.
Trey Snide and Ron Noel welcome Lance Stallings, Athletic Director at Vance Charter School, to SportsTalk. Stallings discusses the difficulties of overcoming delayed tryouts and practices due to Covid 19. He also touches on the growing and learning process for basketball teams at the school and the excitement coaches feel now that the season is underway.
Stallings also spoke on other sports that are about to get underway or resume at the school. These include volleyball, lacrosse and soccer. Stallings also said that senior night for the volleyball team had taken place this week when they played East Wake and that the cross country team would be playing for the conference championship this week.
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In the second half of the show, Trey and Ron discussed a six player trade in Major League Baseball involving the New York Mets and the Cleveland Indians. The trade will have major impacts on both teams.
They also discussed local high school basketball including upcoming games for Granville Central, South Granville, JF Webb, Warren County, Louisburg and Bunn.
Several local games for Vance Co. High School have been cancelled due to Covid-19 related issues and Victory Christian School has cancelled its entire season.
When a sports team plays 30 games and only loses two, that’s something to be celebrated. That was the case last year for the Vance Charter School Lady Knights basketball team. But the celebration must end when the next season begins, and for the Lady Knights and Head Coach Brian Howard, that time has come.
With the first game of the season right after the start of the new year, and with needing to overcome the mental and physical effects covid has had so far on everyone, a week’s worth of preparation and mindset will have to do.
Coach Howard joined SportsTalk host Trey Snide (click below to listen) on WIZS Tuesday at 1 p.m., along with co-host Ron Noel, and Howard said for the first game “I just want to see a lot of hunger. I think at times they still harking back to going 28-2 last year and not realizing, ok, we’re 0-0 again. We have to do this whole process over. And so I just want to see a lot of aggression and a lot of hunger from my team. That’s all I can ask for for the first game.”
That’s how the season starts, but if you want to get to the end and have it be a banner season, then goals, mindset and more plays a factor.
Howard said, “It’s just the fact that I didn’t know how everybody was going to adjust to wearing the mask during practice. And so before practice started I just went ahead and I told them…This is what is expected of us this year, and I’ve seen it can be done because I’ve seen other schools do it. And I said and those other schools I’ve seen do it, they don’t have the caliber athletes that we have in his gym right now. So we’ll make the best of the situation, and we’re going to go out here and we’re going to perform to the best of our abilities because at the end of the season whoever wins the conference is still going to get a trophy. And I want the trophy. And so just adjust your mindset now to…this is a covid season or whatever you want to call it. Just get rid of that mindset and just understand that at the end of the day, we still have to go out and perform at the best of our abilities. Everybody else is in the same boat. Everybody’s doing the same things that we have to do, so there’s no room for complaining or any excuses that need to be made.“
WIZS SportsTalk (M-F at 1pm) with host Trey Snide and co-host Ron Noel recently featured the first-year head varsity football coach of the Vance County Vipers, Hunter Jenks.
Jenks said the first year has been a lot of good. He said, “The whole world is dealing with changes, and with changes, you just have to be open minded and make the most of it. Of what we’ve been able to do, I’ve been very pleased and excited to just start the process moving forward.”
At this moment he thinks the team is right where it needs to be as he and the other coaches try to keep the terminology familiar, like it was in the past. “One of the things we try to believe in is continual improvement and realizing everyday if you get a little bit better, then we might not be were we want to be right now, but we’ll get there,” Jenks said.
The coach thinks he has tremendous talent on his team in the younger grades. As for the seniors and returning players, names like Saimir Best, Tra’On Lyons, Kevon Burton will be familiar. Jenks said, “I’m really excited. I think we have talent in all four grades. We have some people who have really used quarantine to their advantage, and are going to be completely different players than they were last year.”
The Vipers’ season starts February 26. Vance County Friday Night Football on WIZS will be live with the play by play.
In the second segment of the show, Trey and Ron discussed the outstanding recruiting class UNC football was able to land.
On Friday, Dec. 11, three seniors from Crossroads Christian School, Haley Patterson, Hope Macklin, and Justice Simmons, discussed their senior season in women’s basketball and about the leadership role for female athletics.
Each Friday on WIZS SportsTalk, host Trey Snide presents the weekly Coach’s Corner segment.
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Simmons said some of the new rules are weird, but “I’m pretty grateful that I still get to play basketball.” Macklin more or less agreed and said, “It’s not the ideal situation…a lot of other schools in our area are just done with sports completely.” Patterson said, “I feel like it’s not the situation we wanted to be in, but it still gives us an opportunity as seniors to have our last basketball season with all the girls.”
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On the positive said, they indicate they have grown closer together and that there has been less pressure with no fans around.
As leaders, the hardest part for these players has been the inability to socialize out of school and the lack of drive because of the overall situation and, of course, wearing a mask while playing and practicing.
The first NCHSAA conference realignment draft features an unprecedented number of division splits.
WIZS SportsTalk hosts Trey Snide and Ron Noel covered the first draft of the North Carolina High School Athletic Association conference realignment Thursday, Dec 10th at 1pm.
You can listen back by clicking play here…
And be sure to listen to the show live M-F at one o’clock.
Before discussing the realignment, George Marshall, athletic director and head men’s basketball coach at Henderson Collegiate, appeared on the show. He said the basketball practices have gone well and players are following all safety protocols. As you know, he said, “In all practices and games, students are required to wear masks.”
Marshall said the team was trying to get back to levels attained last year. He said the senior class last year was huge in that they were the school’s second graduating class and in what they meant to the younger players.
As for the class of 2021, Marshall said, “(The) class has taken some big steps with leadership, and we feel really confident about the juniors as well.”
With an unprecedented number of split conferences in the first NCHSAA draft of conference realignment, Henderson Collegiate and Vance Charter find themselves in conference 11 which also includes Eno River, Oxford Prep, Roxboro Community and Voyager Academy.
Most conferences are finding their member institutions to be close by, when it comes to driving distances.
Vance County is in conference 17 with Bunn, Louisburg, Nash Central, Franklinton (3A), Northern Nash (3A), Rocky Mount (3A) and Southern Nash (3A).
As for Granville County Schools, they’re in conference 18 which features Granville Central, South Granville, J.F. Webb, Bartlett Yancey, Durham School of the Arts (3A), Person (3A) and Southern Durham (3A)
Warren County will be more to the east, in conference 9 which also includes KIPP Pride, Northampton County, NW Halifax, Rocky Mount Prep, SE Halifax and Weldon.
Schools have until January 8th to request changes, and a second draft will come out mid-January for the NCHSAA.
The UNC Tar Heels Football team hosts Miami Saturday, Dec. 12 at 3:30. Airtime on WIZS with Jones Angell and the entire Tar Heel Sports Network is 2:30pm. Listen Local at 1450 AM / 100.1 FM / Click on Listen Live at WIZS.com if you are within 70 miles of Henderson.
In Friday’s edition of SportsTalk on WIZS at 1pm, Angell joined host Trey Snide. To listen back to that audio click here.
Angel said it’s pretty impressive to see this rapid level of growth from last year to this year. “The steps forward that Carolina has taken are really really impressive. National Signing Day is next week. Carolina expects to bring in a top-15 national recruiting class. It’ll be one of their best ones ever,” he said.
The momentum is there. The process is occurring for UNC.
Angell said, “You can really put an exclamation point on it here with a win here Saturday because I think it’s a win that would give you some national attention.”
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With questions surrounding mask requirements for student-athletes and health concerns, the Crossroads Christian School Colts have temporarily halted the men’s basketball season.
CCS Athletic Director Scottie Richardson said the decision was based solely on what is right for the players. “The decision came down to the health of our student-athletes, period,” said Richardson. “We just don’t have enough information on the status of playing a sport like basketball and wearing masks. Instead of just allowing it without doing our due diligence of understanding the risks involved with how it couples with asthma, breathing issues, heart issues from birth, etc., we decided to pause the sport for two weeks.”
Richardson further explained that several players have inhalers, are diabetic or have other underlying health issues that could potentially make playing sports in a mask more difficult.
In guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the wearing of masks during athletic activities, Richardson said the agency recognizes that “masks may be challenging for players (especially younger players) to wear while playing sports” and “masks should not be placed on anyone who has trouble breathing or is unconscious.”
The North Carolina Independent Schools Athletic Association (NCISAA) recently announced plans for officials to extend timeouts, quarter breaks and halftime to allow for additional recovery time for playing in masks.
Basketball activities are expected to resume at CCS on Monday, December 7, 2020, with the team spending the first week back on the court in shooting drills, walk-through drills, etc.
According to Richardson, games and full-speed practices will remain paused until more information is gathered from the NCISAA and NC Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS). Games canceled for COVID issues or concerns are counted as “no contests.”
