natenica

Man I thank you. You have been a true fan to Melrose from the first time I met u. Nate thanks you for believing in him when most people did not. The surgery was a success and now we are just waiting on time. Hopefully by the end of the summer we back to rolling again. Im hoping he is feeing well tomorrow so we can go to the huge celebration in the mound. I hope you and the wife make it. It was an impressive year and other than his injury is was a perfect ending to 3 years of hard work. Most people dont realize these kids got to Melrose 3 years ago and got whooped pretty bad. They got better every year. Tribute goes out to JJ. Nate had only been playing Basketball 2 years and look how it turned out. So we are just going to let this thing run its course and get ready for NIU. I love you guys

TraderB I love that post. I had no problem with Keylon's coaching style. When u have a team as loaded as melrose and Hamilton was, u become a Manager more than a coach. You coach in pratice and get all the situations put in play and let the players run the show on game time. Keylon was good at that. It was good also that the team was senior stacked. I cant tell u all over the city I see the same stuff. Coaches yelling at the players durning a play their concentration get lost and ball get stolen. Its mad. People talk about Lawson but he will be in the record book forever. I wish more coaches would take that Phil Jackson aproach. As for melrose off the court Isssues. Point blank their are none. These are some real good kids. they stay out of trouble and do whats asked of them. They are never off the court. They pratice before games and everyday they dont have one. Thank God for the snow days. TraderB Lawson is not oaching at hamilton anymore. Hamilton downfall is not his fault. Talent went elsewhere, because of the school becoming more troubled with crime parents put their kids elsewhere. We had to make that decison when they closed SouthSide down.

Now coming from someone who has been in the program since day one I think I have prob have the best perspective. I said this on another blog and I will say it here. This prob is the game is not fun to the players anymore. Its all work. Pratice too much even on sundays, There getting burned out. When the game is no longer a game for kids u got a problem. Yea it was the players fault in the WS game. We have to shoulder some blame also. We glorify these kids, prop them up and be the first one to tear them down. Right now the players need a pick me up. Their confidence is completely shot. Knox u right the season is not over. If JJ dont find away to make the game fun to them really quick it will be. Nate is so ready to be gone. Im kinda burned out myself but we keeping the faith.

We played half court in the second half. Running in the frst half is what got the big lead.

We lost 58 - 57 after loosing a huge lead.

Dang Knoxbball. Relax tournament time coming up and I think all parties have had a reality check. Even us parents. Im looking forward to seeing how we play East tonight. They always come at us with all they got. Nate was really frustrated over last weeks stuation, but we got to move on. There have been some really good points on this post. Make u think. We just got to keep at the grind. We will prob be 3rd seed and thats a dangerous seed for anyone to play. So im looking forward to it. Hey I hope I will see u at the game tonight. I will miss fridays game at Whitehaven because Southern Miss will be here playing the University of Memphis. We doing the big Family thing since this is Candace last time playing at home. Hope to see u later. Nate Rucker

Yea it it true. We wanted to get this distraction out of the way so he could concentrate on school and getting ready for this rough season. Northern was a good fit for us because Coach Patton is know for player development. Will Smith is a prime example of that. You are right that Nate has been an undersize big. Thats because memphis players have been getting smaller and smaller since the 80s. More of a guard oriented city. So that leaves any kid thats over 6"4 playing post on most teams. We always wanted to make a decision as a family based on what school with would fit him well. Most people are only interested in big name so called high major schools. I can tell u hundreds of players that wish they had not got caught up in the name game. We turned down some high majors in order to find the best fit for him. They have a very good Computer Science dept which will be his major. Not many people talk about that part of it. The MAC conference is starting to make some noise now. Hopefull he goes up there and coaches bring out the best that he can be, and make Memphis and TN proud. Thanks knoxx for following him.

Yea yankee8589 Bama has been a nice surprise to us. Coming very hard. They usually dont do that well at getting memphis players. But I do like the School and coaching staff. They will be here this weekend to the Memphis select tournament as well as the other 2 next week We will see. /smile.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile.gif" />

Thanks guys. We still are a work in progress and a lot of learning to go. But I believe hard work pays off at the end.

Thanks for all the love melrose is getting guys. Being Nate's father i try not to comment on things and just stay out of silly conversations. But sometime you have to dispell rumors. No we have not commited to Southern Miss. They have offered and it has nothing to do with candace. At this point we have quite a few offers which is a total blessing to my family to be able to get two into school for free using their god giving ability. He does let it get him down sometime about to rankings and all that, but hey these are kids not robots. Went thru the same things with candace. If you dont go to certain camps or get political with people sometime you get left out. But we are looking for a big july and with the offers we have now im very happy. I hear a lot of people talk about mid major and high major. well we got plenty of both. and some may surprise a lot of you, but in my home we look at it like this, If you can go to the so called mid major and dominate as opposed to going to a memphis or like and riding the bench for 4 years i will take mid major anyday.

We had a lot of Problems toward the end of the season. 1. We too guard Oriented. Dribble way too much. Only in the region did we start going to the post. At one point early in the preseason I was seriously thinking about taking Nate back to hamilton because of lack of post play. we take way too many jump shots and miss and the other team running back in our face. 2. defensive adjustments. when the press was not working why not fall back and play straight defense. RE ran right by us for easy shots time and time again. 3 Running got us where we were but in our losses other than RE we played to the other team strengths. Against RE Nate told me he thought some of the players was scared and they played that way. When we got tank with 2 quick fouls we did not take advantage of it. Not getting out in the corners for the 3 and the Technical foul set the stage for a serious blow out. The kids must work harder this summer to get more basketball smarts. We only lost 3 seniors. We got a good core coming back next year so there will be no excuses. Thomas, Jones, Hollimon, Telvin, Nino, Nate, Lowe and a couple very good 9th graders. Coach JJ need to take a look in the mirror and take the blame for not adjusting. But if we dont use the post game and just be a guard team, we will have this same conversation this time next year. Congrats to RE and im pulling for them to bring the big ball back to memphis.

Yea and Melrose have nothing to hold their head down for. To make that come back. If we hit 1 FT we would be talking about a diff outcome. My Son Nate Played well down the stretch in the post. Should be interesting next week.

Any Thoughts?

Very Nice. Keep Up The Good Work

No the Games will not be live because of school bandwidth limitations. I will broadcast them 1 hour after the game is over and they can be seen on demand anytime after that. The video's are streamed by using media servers. This is all done in house so we dont have to use any of that advertising crap on the site. just all melrose. Hope this answer your question

Try Melrose High Memphis Tn Site. http://www.melrosehoops.com

Great year BTW. Keep your head up cause this will be one to remember. U represented memphis well. Nate

Your Right Hedgehog. Lets roll to the Elite 8

Well if U read Mine I said I apologize for the Girls If u are Offended. And Yes Im only responsible for the Action Of Candace cause she is my daughter I cant speak for any other parent. So what else U want us to say? What?. Im the only one on here trying to set this straight. Never once did I Defend anything. Game is done now. So if u say we got no class then so be it. If u cant take an apology for something so silly then Fine. Good Luck next year.

No insult hedgehog. Anyone who knows a anything about basketball know u take the strong hand away from a player. Thats good basketball. Carmelcutipie im sorry it has came down to this silly stuff about no class. If we did anything to offend Bhscoach im sorry. But u have kids here 9th ,10, and 11th graders that was excited about a big win. Same thing Ridgeway did at northside 48 hours earlier. And we found no disrespect. We gave those young ladies all the credit in the world for coming into Northside and taking care of business. I did not raise Candace to be disrespectful and I know she did not. So I apologize for any of the young ladies. I will not again. They deserve the credit for going into bartlett and winning. Lets take the higher road here and give these young ladies credit for playing hard in a very clean game. Thanks Hedgehog and Carmelcutiepie Nate Rucker

Thanks A Lot Heghog. Its been a Lot of work but it has paid off. Hopefully Cu will make her stronger and teach her that she dont have to do everything and depend on her teamates to do their job. Its been a fun ride and now im looking forward to this ending and moving to the next journey in out life. Thanks for the props.

Its was a great win against a very good team. And as been said before you have to be lucky sometime this time of year. They are not 33 - 2 for nothing. They have played all the best inner city teams in Memphis. And they are very battle tested. For some reason we was a little tired. Pretty much cause the region Title 48 hours early was a battle and not a blow out where the starters could rest. But as before we have came up big when it counted. The girls went brain dead at the end durning the press and Candace really did not play her best game at all. Being my daughter I can tell u I have seen better. She said she was just beat and these next couple days not playing will be well needed. All hats off the Bartlett for fighting til the end. Cause usually Northside bury a team when they got them down. But we played a half court game. Durning the melt down anyone notice Holmes did not call a time out til we turned over the ball 4 times. At this point and after regional finals everyone is exhausted. But when you can go into another teams gym this time of year and win it says something. But a well rested and on their game northside team will be tough. If they dont get past first round at least we can say out of all the tems in Tn we was one of the last 8 standing. Great year to Barlett they have a Nice team coming back. Lets roll and finish up strong Nate

O dont get me wrong. I never complained to the coach like most parents do. As an ex player I have 2 perspectives. And yea he promised that he would take care of her durning her years and work for scholarship. But dont ever tell a parent they dont have the right to speak up. What we need to be saying is there is a way to do it. Parents have all the right when a minor is involved. And yea 7 playes got scholarships and we was 22 - 10. 3 D1 and 4 juco. Juco counts as scholarships and that does mean something so some people. The coach and I had that convo today as a matter of fact and he was man enough to admit that he should not have done some things durning games after going back and seeing it again, Cause it hurt her and the team. So as far at that is concerned it a closed issue. But we handled it proper. Love u guys

Thats total bull. Any High school coach that does no aspire to get his kid into college does not need to coach high school sports. This first thing my coach told me when i got to the 9th grade was im going to do all i can to get u into college. You have to do the rest. Not all of us from the inner city had parents that could afford it. So in those days the coaches did all they could do. So if that mentality has changed sorry for the state of high school sports. I would rather haven players with scholarships than 20 wins a year anyday. Who would u rather send your child to play for. Someone who look out for their future or someone oly concerned about high school sports hall of fame. Hey nothing wrong with any of these comments we all can agree to disagree. This is good convo by parents and coaches. And all im trying to say is my high school coach did all he could to develop every kid on that team. and 7 of us got scholarships. Not just for winning, but for him going to extra mile to get the coaches to come watch us. and sending tape out. This was way before AAU got big. So if any of u guys dont agree with that o well. Im grateful for him.

I would have to say yes. My daughter plays for Northside high in memphis. Now I never questioned Playing time cause she started since 9th grade. My prob is how he was and still sometime play her. He does not let her shoot 3s. All he want her to do is drive the ball 100% of the time. Most these coaches only care about winning and not developing the kids skills. She even scored 40 one night just on drives. My daughter 5"9 and play foward and center way too much. She got her college looks not for what she did in high school but on the AAU circuit. Because she has a AAU coach that is concerned about them going to college and developing their weakness. Colleges saw her shoot the 3 play the point and all that stuff they are looking for. Now she has signed with Colorado and every other day they calling asking about is she running the point, how is her 3 looking., how many assist. Just sad I cant say anything. Cant say anything cause we 26 - 2. So yes as a parent we have to look out for our kids. We have the most investment in them than any coach. I played in college so I know what it takes to make it to D1. And I would not sacrafice a kids development for 20 wins a year in high school. And yes some of our parents go too far but that is the nature of the beast u dont like it quite and do something else.