Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame coach Charles Smith of Alexandria’s Peabody Magnet High School won another state championship over the past weekend, but this one was different than any of the other nine his Warhorses claimed during his 40 years as their head basketball coach.
“My past state championship teams kind of built into that over a two-or three-year period,” Smith said the day after his second-seeded Warhorses whipped 12th-seeded Northside of Lafayette, 82-61, in the Division II Select finals at Burton Coliseum in Lake Charles. “It usually took two-to-three years to mold a team that was championship caliber. But nobody from this team was on the ’24 team when we won our last title.”
His starters this year often included two freshmen, including 6-foot point guard Corey Blake Jr., a remarkable team leader as a freshman. His father, Corey Blake Sr., played high school basketball for Rapides and Alexandria Senior High before playing in junior college and for part of an injury-abbreviated season at the University of New Orleans. The young Corey was crucial in this year’s team success.
“He’s the best point guard (at Peabody) to ever come in as a freshman and start from day one,” said Smith. “He was an 8th-grader last year, and this year he’s been leading the team. He’s an exceptional talent. He took the team on his shoulders, showed up and showed out.”
During the season the junior Blake scored a team-high 30 points in an 11-point victory over eventual Division I Non-Select runner-up Ruston.
“He’s got a great feel for the game, and he has a lot of poise,” added Smith. “In pressure situations, he was our go-to guy. He’s almost a carbon copy of his dad (although the senior Blake was 6-5), who has spent many hours working on his son’s game.”
Peabody’s top senior player, shooting guard/forward Devontre Sword, was voted the Division II Select MVP of the state tournament. He scored a cumulative 39 points total in the semifinals and finals.
A Peabody starter as a freshman, Sword then moved with his mother to Dallas, where he played for two seasons before returning to Alexandria to play for Peabody again this season. Like Blake, he has some basketball pedigree in that he is the nephew of former Peabody basketball star William McNeill (2008 all-state honorable mention) who later was a defensive star and all-conference honoree for Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas.
Sword was instrumental in Peabody’s big regular season victories over Ruston and Division IV Non-Select state champion Ferriday. He had four 3-pointers in his 20-point effort in the state championship game.
He and Blake were the team leaders, and they worked to earn that leadership role.
“After hours, they were in the gym working together in the evenings,” said Smith. “Both are excellent free throw shooters and 3-point shooters.”
Smith coached in the championship contest against his former player Troy Jones, who just completed his first season as Northside’s head coach. Jones played for two state championship teams at Peabody in 2010 and 2012.
“I talked to him after the game and gave him a big bear hug,” said Smith. “I told him, ‘You should be proud of your accomplishments as a first-year coach, taking your team to the state championship game.’”
In addition to Blake and Sword, Smith’s other significant players were senior forward Malachi Anderson, sophomore center Brayden Durant, junior guard Connor Rosenthal, freshman center JD Holden, and junior forwards Kaline Eddie and Keon Wilton.
Smith, who has worked 40 seasons as Peabody’s head coach, is 76 and will be 77 on May 15. The Warhorses finished the season with 30 victories (with three losses but only one that counted as an LHSAA game because two were out of state and one was an exhibition). That gives Smith 1,266 career victories, which puts him just nine wins away from overtaking legendary Morgan Wooten, who logged 1,274 victories in 46 years of coaching (1956-’02) at DeMatha in Hyattsville, Md.
That would put him third overall on the career victories chart behind Ft. Worth, Texas prep coaching icon Robert Hughes (1333) and Gary McKnight, who has 1,306 victories and is still coaching at Mater Dei in Santa Anna, Calif.
Smith, married for 51 years to the former Rosa Bynog, is showing no signs of slowing down, and he wants to keep coaching.
“I still feel able to help young boys get to a higher level,” said Smith, who was an assistant coach for 10 years at Peabody under Ernest Bowman before becoming head coach, “and I’m not talking just basketball. I didn’t get into (coaching) to win awards or state championships (11 total with one as Bowman’s assistant). I wanted to move young boys to higher levels in life.
“I’m privileged to have gotten my two seniors college scholarships,” he said. “I tell people all the time what matters most to me is what the kids go on from college to do: work for and be vice presidents of Fortune 500 companies, be lawyers, doctors, engineers, airline pilots and all points in between.”
In the meantime, Smith has built such a fan base spread across the region and even America that he said fans traveled from Houston, Dallas and one alumnus even came from Seattle to cheer on the Warhorses in the semifinals and finals in Lake Charles.
He was told if he needed any inspiration for longevity as a high school basketball coach, there is Harold Mulhearn, who has coached for some 70 years for several schools and is now an assistant coach for Fairchild High School in Osseo, Wisconsin. He is 91 and he’s not ready to call it quits.
“I won’t be coaching that long,” Smith said.