Bellbrook graduation 2012
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Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2009 > March > 27 > Entry
COLUMN: Marshall playing for all of Dayton
When it comes to Thurgood Marshall High basketball this season, the surprises just keep coming.
No sooner had coach John Ralph stepped out onto the floor of the new gymnasium Thursday afternoon, March 26,, taken hold of the microphone and begun revving up the crowd at the pep rally that would send his team off to the Division II state tournament, than several of his players snuck up behind him.
They raised a big yellow Igloo cooler over his head and poured a blizzard of confetti that swamped the unsuspecting coach. As Ralph had jumped and the students had squealed, the Cougars had added another victim in this surprising season.
Two years ago, the team — then the Colonel White Cougars — won just five games. The year before that, just one. But last year Colonel White became Thurgood Marshall and the students were moved into a new building on Hoover Ave.
“It’s a $25 million facility and the kids have performed and acted like they’re in a brand new facility,” said principal David Lawrence. “They’ve been phenomenal from top to bottom.”
Led by junior point guard Juwan Staten, the Cougars are 21-4 and now play 24-1 Circleville Logan Elm at 10:45 this morning at the Schottenstein Center.
When the team finally boarded its charter bus in front of the school while fellow students cheered, Lawrence talked about the bigger-than-basketball task it’s taken on:
“Dayton has had a very tough go of it with General Motors closing and many of its subsidiaries, too. In many cases when you’re talking about cities that have been devastated by the economy, the high schools tend to take on lives of their own and represent the hopes of a whole town.
“What better way for us to represent this community than to go to Columbus and compete for the state championship.”
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