Rick's Grill a USA Top 10

[fish5]

Shelbyville Gym is one of the top 10 high school basketball arenas to watch the sport (per USA Today - Friday, 2/27/04). Shelbyville is coming on very strong and is the odds on favorite to win the AAA state title again!

 

- fish (Colorado Springs, CO)

 

Shelbyville, Tennessee

 

Central High School

 

Central Gymnasium, seats 2,600.

 

Gym gems: Nicknamed Rick's Grill. "Probably because we turn up the heat (pressure) in there," says girls basketball coach Rick Insell, whose teams have lost only 20 games since 1977. Shelbyville averages 1,600 a home game. Fans aren't allowed in the gym until an hour before tip-off. All seats are unreserved, but many senior citizens arrive around 3 p.m. to place their seat cushions on the bleachers. The practices for the girls team remain open to the public. "Basketball is a big deal in our Community, a real social thing," Insell says.

 

Memorable moments: Jan. 12, 1991, Shelbyville beats Christ the King (Middle Village, N.Y.) 75-43. The nation's top two teams met in a game billed as "the biggest high school girls game." A standing-room crowd and 23 members of the national media see Tiffany Woosley score 27 of her game-high 33 points in the second half. In December 1991, Cardinal O'Hara (Springfield, Pa.) stuns Shelbyville 77-75, stopping its home winning streak at 110 games.

 

Names you might recognize: Visitors have included Lisa Leslie (Morningside, Inglewood, Calif.) of the Los Angeles Sparks and Sheila Frost (Pulaski, Tenn.) and Kellie Jolly (Sparta, Tenn.), who both played for the University of Tennessee. Prominent Shelbyville alumni include Woosley, Conswella Sparrow, Misty Lamb, Jill Mitchell, Angela Morehead and Ashley Johnson.

 

- Christopher Lawlor

[OneManGang]

Ask Jackson Co. and White Co. why they call it the grill. Congratulations again to the Eaglettes!

[bob77]

They are unbeatable at home this year. Belive me, I was there and I witnesed.

[UCSportsFan]

Ask Jackson Co. and White Co. why they call it the grill. Congratulations again to the Eaglettes!

 

Don't get me started! Just for your info there were more people at the game that Jackson County won than there were in Shelbyville when we lost, but hopefully they'll air the first game of the season on "Dateline NBC", but my moneys on them editing out the loss to the little AA county team and just showing the big victory!

[bob77]

SchoolID=450&SportID=2]Shelbyville[/url] averages 1,600 a home game. F

That can't be true though.

[85warrior]

Ask Jackson Co. and White Co. why they call it the grill.  Congratulations again to the Eaglettes!

White Co. has played there twice in the last 10 years. They have won one and lost one. Not bad. We had grilled Eaglette the night we won. Mmmm it was good.

Edited March 2, 2004 by 85warrior

[HUCK]

There is no way you can get 1,600 people in that gym unless you put seats on the top courts! There can't be that many geriatrics in Bedford County!

[90warrior]

do they have fried mountain oyesters there?

[ccalum]

I can say I was there for two of Shelbyville's 20 defeats at home since'77, the '92 <a href='http://www.coacht.com/inside/team.cfm?SchoolID=151&SportID=2' target='_blank'>Franklin Co.</a> game and the '93 Coffee Co. game. Both were good games and very satisfying for me. A couple of years ago I was in Houston's airport heading home when in line to get a boarding number was Ole Rick himself. He had been in San Antonio for the Women's Final 4. Myself and a friend of mine (who was an Oakland grad), were over and over whispering "what about those Oakland Patriots" or standing behind people and doing the Oakland cheer, and other stuff like that. A couple of weeks before OHS had beaten Shelbyville in regions, and the wound I'm sure was still fresh. He kept on looking around, even getting up on his tiptoes to allow his diminutive frame to catch a glimpse of us, trying to find out who was saying all that, and I'm sure he was thinking "Who in the heck in Houston knows about the Oakland Patriots". I know that's incredibly childish, but we got a good laugh out of it. On the plane ride back, we saw where he was sitting and kept on saying subtle anti-Shelbyville epithets (no cursing though) so that he could hear us. He just kept on turning back to find out where all that was coming from. Just thought I'd entertain you all with a good Rick Insell story!

 

I edited only one part of this to take out the personal bashing. - sportsman

Edited March 3, 2004 by sportsman

[tbuc50]

Great and funny story ccalum

[flemtone]

There is no way you can get 1,600 people in that gym unless you put seats on the top courts! There can't be that many geriatrics in Bedford County!

For the record, the gym seats just over 2200 people.

[sportsman]

Sorry had to delete some inapporopriate posts and comments. Let's keep this clean.