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Don Bosco coach Scroggins is not one to give up
By CANDACE BUCKNERThe Kansas City Star
Inside the empty gymnasium at Don Bosco Charter High School, Scroggins pulls up a chair and goes on and on about the bad breaks down in Lawson or over in Springfield. His squad plays bigger teams, sure, but his Don Bosco Wolves should win those games.
“We lost some heartbreakers, I’ll tell you,” Scroggins says, nervously tapping his hand weighted down by three football conference championship rings. “We just can’t seem to get that winning basket.”
Scroggins worries about his boys jelling before today’s Missouri Class 3, District 15 playoff game at Higginsville. After all, he lost his top player because of ineligibility and never played a home game this season — the sorts of things that should matter to a high school coach. He seems to care, too.
You almost believe him when he sighs about poor free-throw shooting, but while he’s talking, tears well up in his eyes. And high school basketball coaches usually don’t cry over missed free throws.
As hard as Scroggins tries to focus on basketball details, he forces a weak smile and finally admits that he has another doctor’s appointment coming up. This time, doctors are planning to remove more cancerous polyps from his colon. As the topic turns from basketball and becomes more difficult, Scroggins’ answers become brief.
“You have to talk about it,” Scroggins says. “You can’t hide it. It’s a part of life”
Scroggins has coached 31 years, including this season as the Don Bosco boys basketball coach. He celebrated his 50th birthday last August. When he was 16, Scroggins lost his father to colon cancer. So, throughout his adult life, he has visited a doctor to monitor his health.
Only his grayish sideburns reveal his true age. He was fit enough to play organized football until he was 48. And he returned kickoffs, no less. Friends tease him as being the Bionic Man. But last month during a routine checkup, Scroggins learned he had colon cancer. And he was scared. So he decided to worry about basketball instead.
“I don’t want to bring a lot of attention to my health, I just want attention to this team and the school,” Scroggins says. “The team has stuck together and not given up. A lot of teams right now would’ve thrown in the towel, (but) I don’t believe in that.”
•••
It’s not as if Don Bosco players needed more bad news. On Jan. 22, Scroggins stood alone in the back corner of the gym, staring out a window. This was going to be hard. Just the previous week Scroggins informed players that senior Tyrone Hooker was no longer on the team. Now, he had something else to tell them.
Hooker enrolled at Don Bosco as a junior in the fall of 2006. Three years after he started high school. Hooker had the size, 6 feet 5, and the game to match, averaging 35 points a game. Sometimes he played so well that people believed he was older than he claimed.
That belief persisted.
“There was speculation and spoken words about the topic. A few people mentioned a few things,” Don Bosco assistant principal Randy Noud said. “You hear from different angles, and you just have to research what you hear.”
Hooker attended Westport as a freshman, and — according to school records — he enrolled during the 2003-04 school year. His playing eligibility should have concluded after his first season at Don Bosco, but Hooker continued playing at the start of the 2007-08 season.
“I was done with all my credits (and) after I got all my credits, I wasn’t enrolled anymore,” Hooker says. “I guess you’ve got to be enrolled at school to play basketball.”
“Didn’t nobody tell me nothing. They were continuing to let me play. What was I supposed to do? I didn’t know what was going on.”
After the January investigation, school officials ruled Hooker was ineligible, and Noud said the Wolves would rescind the only victory they achieved while playing with Hooker. Definitely a shock to players, but nothing compared with the news awaiting them on that Tuesday morning.
“He couldn’t tell us, he was so emotional, so Donovan (Garrett) told us that Coach got cancer,” junior forward DeShawn Evans remembers. “It was just sad. You really don’t hear too much about cures for cancer. It was just a real emotional day.”
Since that day, players haven’t heard Scroggins talk about his cancer again.
•••
Cancer must wait. After all, there are still district games to play, and Scroggins cares about winning the district tournament.
On the sideline during a recent game against Harmon, there are no watery eyes or uncomfortable body language. Just a scowling coach who loves winning so much that, during the Harmon junior-varsity game, he inserts three varsity starters to spark a comeback in the fourth quarter.
Scroggins stomps his Stacy Adams shoes and claps his jeweled hands for every one of his boys’ fast-break layups. The late substitutions keep the Don Bosco junior-varsity team undefeated. The same can’t be said for his varsity team.
“If you want to win,” Scroggins yells at varsity players during the halftime pep talk. “You’ve got to play smart defense!”
He pauses for dramatic effect, looking around to catch their eyes. The Wolves may be losing now, but Scroggins never loses sight of the big picture.
“The only thing that could stop us is if the bus breaks down heading to state,” Scroggins says, and every player applauds.
By the fourth quarter, Harmon opens and maintains a 20-point lead. Everybody in the gym knows that Don Bosco is done.
Everybody except Scroggins.
“This is not over!” Scroggins says, pacing the sideline and clapping. “You gotta believe!”
Scroggins feels the same way about today’s district tournament game, where the Wolves, 1-11, enter as the fourth seed. And when he openly and briefly acknowledges his cancer, he shares the same optimism.
This is the time of year when high school basketball coaches believe they still have a shot. Scroggins is no different.
“It’s just another part of life. I’ve had bigger obstacles before and beat them,” Scroggins says. “This is no big deal. I’ll live to be 90.”