- April 25, 2024
-
-
Loading
Loading
The Seabreeze basketball court was named after a grizzled West Virginia native who lead the Sandcrabs boys basketball team to two state titles and spent his life as an educator.
BY MATT MENCARINI | STAFF WRITER
Former Seabreeze High School basketball coach Jack Surrette sat in the school's cafeteria, while former players and students lined up, hoping for just a few minutes to thank him for all he had done for them and their school.
Not more than a few hundred yards away, in Joe Nelson Gymnasium, the Seabreeze girls basketball team was on its way to a 60-39 win over Mainland. For the first time this season, a Sandcrabs team was playing on the newly dedicated Jack Surrette Court.
“Mr. Surrette has distinguished himself as an exemplary advocate of public education,” Principal Robert Wallace said, during the Jan. 12 ceremony, before tip off of the Seabreeze and Mainland boys basketball game. “But it was his outstanding ability as a basketball coach that makes him worthy of this recognition.”
Surrette had just won a state championship as a high school coach in West Virginia when the Seabreeze coaching position opened up more than 50 years ago.
Hired by Joe Nelson, the gym’s namesake, he said he was one of about 40 coaches who had applied for the job. His wife, Betty, had family in the area and was excited about the possibility, but he had reservations.
“I told them I wouldn’t come (interview) unless I was one of two (finalists),” Surrette said. “And they said, ‘Well, you are.’"
He also had to borrow money just to make the plane trip down. "It was tough in those days," he said.
After meeting with Nelson and the school, Surrette was offered the job. But he had one condition.
“I asked them if I could bring my assistant coach Jerry Chandler," he explained. But the school said no. Twenty minutes later, however, the school had reconsidered. Chandler got the job.
At that point, Surrette said, he had no choice but to accept.
In his first season as head coach, he led the Sandcrabs to a state championship. He did it again in 1964, and he left the school after seven years. He later returned and finished his education career at Seabreeze, having spent 13 combined years at the school.
John Greaves, a member of the 1961 state championship team, was among those who gathered to honor Surrette.
“(During) preseason, all during practice, we practiced four defences: 10, 10 Special, 11 and 11 Special,” Greaves said.
The defences were part of Surrette’s “coaching wizardry,” Greaves said, adding that during the first game of the 1961 season, Surrette brought his players together and told them after they stole the ball a few times, the opposing coach would call a timeout and try to adjust.
After the opponent did just as he predicted, Surrette called out for his team to play a different press defense, and the Sandcrabs started forcing turnovers again, Greaves said, while Surrette stood on the sideline with a big smile on his face.
Surrette said the school approached him a few years ago about naming the court for him, but he wasn’t sold on the idea. He said he’s shy by nature and credits those around him with much of the program’s success.
But as the boys and girls basketball teams lined up along the court’s sidelines, and as Wallace addressed the crowd with Surrette’s former players just behind him, the grizzled West Virginia native was asked to say a few words.
Surrette, holding the net from the 1961 state championship game and ball signed by the team, thanked everyone for the honor.
At one point, he even smiled. It must have been the same smile opposing coaches saw as their teams were smothered by the Sandcrabs’ defense.
