SportsApril 29, 2016
Talent for all seasons: Cape Central's Al Young named Southeast Missourian Boys Basketball Player of the Year
Make no mistake about it -- football comes first for Al Young. But that wasn't always the case, and it shouldn't take away from what he accomplished on the basketball court during his four-year career at Cape Central.
Make no mistake about it -- football comes first for Al Young.
But that wasn't always the case, and it shouldn't take away from what he accomplished on the basketball court during his four-year career at Cape Central.
Young was already an all-state football player destined to take his talents to the Division I level when Central coach Drew Church was receiving phone calls from Division II, junior college and NAIA coaches, all of whom were inquiring about Young's interest in playing basketball in college.
"It was a pretty quick conversation," Church said about the phone calls. "... He's told me before that he just plays basketball because he likes being around the guys and likes being around the coaching staff.
"He's a football guy, so the coaches that did contact me for recruiting for basketball, I was pretty honest with them. I told them up front that he didn't really have an interest in playing at the next level for basketball."
Young, a standout wide receiver, signed a National Letter of Intent on Feb. 3 to continue his football career with Southeast Missouri State, and the rest of his journey on the gridiron is well-documented. His name comes up time and time again in the school's record books, so it's easy to understand why that overshadows what took place during his four years as a starter on the hardwood.
Following an impressive senior campaign in which he averaged 21.7 points, 8.3 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 2.4 steals per game, Young continues to rack up postseason awards. He's the first person in 27 years to be named the most outstanding SEMO Conference player in both basketball and football, leading the Tigers to a 21-7 record in his final varsity season.
It was a year Young and his teammates likely won't be forgetting any time soon, a year that included the program's first Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament title since 1996 and a stunning victory that handed Sikeston its first loss of the season.
Now, as his last days at Central dwindle toward graduation, Young can add another award to his resume -- Southeast Missourian Boys Basketball Player of the Year.
"Coach Church just told me to be a leader by example, so I made sure I did that a lot," Young said. "I made sure I got everybody involved so when we played teams, they knew they couldn't just key in on me. If I get doubled, I made sure I could just know where to go to and not just take a bad shot even though I was doubled.
"I just played smart and tried to be a good leader."
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Young was a basketball player long before thoughts of becoming a football star ever materialized.
Growing up in Caruthersville, he began playing competitive basketball in the second grade with a travel, church-based team called The Bridge. He also played for an AAU team based out of Charleston, joining forces with a number of players from across Southeast Missouri. It was during that time he met Sikeston's Dominique Dyes, who's also now a senior, and Poplar Bluff's Marcedus Leech, who's now a freshman and considered one of the top national recruits in his class.
"That was a good mix, and we had fun that year," Young said. "I remember we played [five-star Class of 2016 recruit] Jayson Tatum. I was in seventh grade, and we played him at the Show-Me State games.
"... Playing against [former Caruthersville football star] Darrell Monroe, that'll make you tough. There's a lot of talent down that way, so it'll make you tough. There's not really like a gym down there that you can really just go to, so you always just play on concrete every day all day. If you fall or hurt yourself, you better get back up, because if you don't, they're going to talk about you."
By the time he reached the seventh grade, Young had settled into Cape Girardeau and was a key player for The Jungle, a city parks and recreation league team for varsity players.
It only took a year for him to begin taking on a more assertive role.
"I don't know how to make it sound, but basically I just took over my eighth grade year," Young said. "We went 14-0. We beat everybody."
"You could tell he was very talented, athletic, has a good nose for the ball, fast, quick, but he was inexperienced and immature," Church said about Young. "And that's stuff that you kind of recognize also."
Young was a first-year starter as a freshman, but his early struggles in basketball fell in line with his growing passion for football. Young, who's now 6-foot, was already aware of the challenges he was going to face on the court.
"You watch a lot of basketball videos, and you see it's all about the height now. So I knew I wasn't going to be 6-3, 6-4," Young said. "Football always had my heart, too, so I just stuck to football. ... I remember playing against Jackson my sophomore year, and they had one kid who was like 6-8. I just remember I kept taking it to the hole, getting my shot blocked every time."
Even at an early age, Young possessed an uncanny ability to shred opposing defenses in transition and finish around the rim -- that's always been Young's modus operandi, but there were still many elements to his game that were fundamentally raw, according to Church.
"He didn't shoot very well. He didn't understand how hard you had to play. It's a faster game than it was when he was younger. He didn't quite understand the team concept of playing hard every possession, just everything a kid struggles with when they jump from the junior high to the high school level," Church said. "He got kind of thrown into the fire just playing some varsity as a freshman -- that's a big jump.
"There were several times where we had to have some serious talks about it, and his confidence got a little busted, I think, a little shaken at times."
"Some games I just told Coach Church, 'I can't handle this,'" Young said. "I wanted to play down to my level. He was like, 'Well, it's going to help you out in the future.' And it did.
"... It gets to you. It frustrates you, and then a lot of times I would be on a fast break my freshman year and I see a big kid come from behind. I could just tell, 'Yeah, he's going to block my shot.' I'd just try to do something crazy and end up missing everything. That's when you know you're a freshman."
Young played alongside a pair of talented big men -- 6-foot-7 Jamal Cox and 6-foot-6 Andre Statam -- during his sophomore and junior years.
Cox was the main cog in the 2013-14 season, but it was Young who came through for the Tigers when they needed him the most. He enjoyed a breakout performance in the Class 4 District 1 championship, finishing with 25 points in a 68-52 victory over top-seeded Sikeston.
Less than a week later, Central's season ended with a 50-47 loss to Farmington in the state sectionals, but Young returned his junior year to lead the Tigers in scoring with 18.4 points per game.
Central went 20-7 in 2014-15, defeating Sikeston twice in the regular season, but the Bulldogs won a 32-point decision in the postseason, ending the Tigers' season in district semifinals.
Statam departed for graduation, signaling Young's turn to assume the lead role.
"A lot of people say that leading is a natural thing, but he kind of learned to lead and learned to play hard and let people watch how he played," Church said. "If someone was out of line, this year especially, he would get on them and try to get them back on track. He could only do that because he was playing hard and was in the program for so long."
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Young entered the 2015-16 season as one of two returning starters, but after his best friend and teammate, Kway'Chon Chisom, left the team during the Christmas Tournament, Young remained as the Tigers' only player with any sort of significant varsity experience.
Central struggled at the start, with several of its players beginning the year with little to no practice coming off a third straight state-semifinal run in football -- Young included.
"I think early, obviously with football, it's tough getting that experience in, but we had a really good, young group that kind of leaned on Al when times got tough," Church said. "I think early on, we kind of lost some easy games, and then there were some changes that happened within our team. And the group that we had -- young or inexperienced -- kind of hung together and leaned on each other, and Al led that and was a good part of telling these kids what we're going through and what we've got to do and how hard we've got to play. I think that's what led to a lot of our success this year."
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The Tigers were 3-4 heading into the Christmas Tournament, but that's when things took a turn.
Central cruised into the title game and edged out a 46-44 victory over Jackson to claim the first championship in Church's 10 years as coach. It wasn't a pretty win, but Young saw it coming all along.
"I told Coach Church going into my senior year when we were at Murray State," Young said. "I was like, 'Coach Church, we're going to win the Christmas Tournament.' He was like, 'You can't just say that.' I'm like, 'Coach Church, we're going to win the Christmas Tournament.' We ended up getting to the championship game, and I told Coach Church the same night before we played, I said, 'Coach Church, we're going to win.' And he said, 'All right, I'm going to hold you to that.'
"... I think I had like 10 points that game, and Austin Parker came out and showed up. Jawone [Newell] showed up. Zyshon Mallory showed up. Everybody showed up to play. We didn't have to depend on one person to score."
Parker, a sophomore, led the Tigers with 13 points, Newell added nine and Mallory contributed six. More importantly, it started a trend that echoed throughout the rest of the year, as Central developed into more than a one-man show.
"Even though he was our leading scorer and he needs to score, he still found ways to facilitate and get his teammates involved," said Parker, who started playing basketball with Young in grade school. "Of course, you've got to score sometimes, but he still just learned how to get his team involved.
"He would actually come to us and tell us, 'Just slow down and chill. There's no sense in getting in a hurry in big moments.' He'd say he was going to throw us the ball. 'Just be ready for it,' that's all he'd say."
The Tigers won 18 of their final 20 games, but none was bigger than a regular-season conference showdown with Sikeston on Feb. 12.
The Bulldogs entered the game without a loss and as the top-ranked team in Class 4, and in front of a standing-room-only crowd, Young finished with a game-high 23 points in leading Central to a 73-63 victory.
"We were at practice, and Coach Church was like, 'Just look at our team. We don't got nobody going to play Division I basketball,'" Young said. "He said, 'What do ya'll got to lose? They've got the pressure on them to beat us.' We were like, 'Coach Church's got a point. We don't got nothing to lose. Just play defense.'"
Parker added 20 points in the win, while Mallory contributed 16. On the defensive end, the Tigers stymied Sikeston's 3-point attack by face-guarding at the 3-point line, while Bulldogs sophomore Fred Thatch, who finished with 22 points, was double-teamed in the paint.
"We had Austin Parker guarding him, so then when Fred would go down low and turn his back, that's when one of our other players would come around and double him," Young said. "We tried to keep our hands in his face so he couldn't look to make a quick pass. ... Our team's really good on the fast break, so once we get in the open court, we were alright.
"We just all came together that Sikeston game. Like I said, that was probably the best game of all of our careers."
However, the fire from that game faded four days later when Central laid an egg in a 15-point loss to Charleston. Young called it a frustrating loss, but the Tigers moved ahead and eventually made their way to the district championship.
Pitted against a hungry Sikeston team playing on its home court, Young wrapped up his high school career in front of more than 3,000 fans, finishing with 14 points in a 59-55 loss that came down to the wire.
"I remember we were getting on the bus and were just pulling in, and I just saw the line all the way outside into the street. I'm like, 'I need to call my mom and make sure she's in,'" Young said. "I called my mom, and she was like, 'I'm on my way. Don't rush me.' I said, 'Oh, well you're not going to get in until halftime.' She was like, 'Really?' And I was like, 'Yeah, the line's outside and it's past the parking lot.'
"When she got there, she got in at halftime. ... That was a fun game playing against them again. I knew they were going to be more hungry, too. I feel like we played a good game. We just had a couple turnovers that killed us."
"We weren't going to 'wow' you this year, and we weren't going to impress you with a lot of things. But we were going to make things ugly and try to wear the other team down and win it at the end," Church said. "We were fortunate to do that a few times. It was a good group. It was a group that stayed together and dealt with adversity a lot of times. It was a fun group to coach, and Al was a huge, huge part of that."
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On the way to the Poplar Bluff Letter Club Basketball Banquet on March 23, Church asked Young if he thought he was going to win the John Gibbs Award, given annually to the most outstanding player in the SEMO Conference. Young didn't think he stood a chance, and Church told him to have a little faith.
Later that night, when Young's name was called out as the winner, he could hardly believe it.
"When they called my name, I looked over at Coach Church. I'm like, 'You knew the whole time, didn't you?' He said, 'Yeah, I knew. I just didn't want to tell you and mess with your confidence,'" Young said. "We got back in the car and had a little talk about it. It was fun. It surprised me a lot."
Young figured the award was going to either Thatch or Leech, but the coaches in the conference figured otherwise.
"That's a deal where within the conference, they had to decide who was the toughest kid or best player in that conference to play against, and Al deserves that," Church said. "He carried us a lot of times. He did things we needed him to do, and he did that with a lot of inexperience on his team. That experience got a lot better as the season went on, but I would say a lot of game plans were made to try to stop Al."
Pound for pound, Young was easily one of the most productive players in the conference. He also garnered Missouri Basketball Coaches Association all-state honors during a year in which he nearly doubled his rebounding numbers.
"The eight rebounds would never have happened before this year," Church said. "We used to call Al the 'leak-out guy' because he'd leak out and not even think about rebounding, so much to the fact that, I think his sophomore year, I got so sick and tired of telling him to rebound, I just said, 'You know what? I'm not fighting this battle. Go ahead and leak out, and we'll just concentrate on throwing you the ball down the court.'
"I just felt like I was making myself crazy, but he was just so good in transition. At one point, we said, 'If you're not going to rebound, then fine. Don't even think about it. Just run out, and we'll get you the ball. We'll get the other guys to rebound.' This year, he kind of saw that we needed him to change, and he rebounded the ball. ... He realized it was important for him to do some of the little things for us to be successful."
While Young has had his fair share of influence from coaches on the football side of things, there's an obvious imprint that Church has left on the departing senior.
Three days after winning their Christmas Tournament title, the Tigers took part in a clean-up project on the north end of town in the Red Star District, an area that experienced some of the worst damage by the city's historic flood.
There's a tone of respect in his voice when Young refers to Church as both a coach and a sort of father figure.
"With Coach Church, it's a role. ... I just try to be a leader, and Coach Church has shown us how to be men and how to live up to your responsibilities," Young said. "If something goes bad, don't just point fingers. Just take the blame for it. Don't try to put the blame on someone else like, 'It was your fault. You should've done this.'
"He showed us how to be a man and to know your role, very disciplined. If you don't do what he wants you to do, then he'll kick you out in a heartbeat. He doesn't care. He always says, 'I can find somebody else to replace you,' and he will."
Young holds his senior campaign, and the teammates with whom he shared the experience, as his greatest achievement on the court. He said he'll miss the camaraderie after practices, hanging out with his "brothers" at his coach's house.
He'll miss wearing the orange and black, but it's only a matter of time before he suits up and hits the field donning new colors.
As far Young's concerned, college basketball is an afterthought. He intends on strictly focusing on football and pursuing a college degree.
Then again, maybe he'll find some time to return to his church-league roots.
"I love basketball a lot, and everybody in Caruthersville loves basketball a lot. It's kind of hard when I go down there. People are like, 'Why aren't you playing basketball? You know you should be playing basketball,'" Young said. "But I like football.
"It's kind of hard to just push basketball away for a while, but I told them, 'You can come watch me play church league.'"
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