This season was about a whole lot more than winning basketball games for a Souderton squad under its third coach in three years. The feature below was sponsored by the Souderton Boys’ Basketball Booster Club.
By Mary Jane Souder
Tim Brown had a dilemma.
With six seniors on his roster, how was the Souderton coach going to handle Senior Night? He couldn’t start six players, so who would be left out?
Hardly a problem. At least not on this squad.
Michael Bealer made sure of that, volunteering to give his starting spot to one of his teammates.
“When Michael came to me and said that, I had chills all over my body and a little tear came to my eye,” Brown said. “Michael has obviously been our go-to guy all season long.
“We always talk about being selfless and doing something for your brothers. He came to me and said, ‘As the captain, I want to put my brothers before me.’ He knew he was going to get his time as well, but the act of stepping down and putting everyone before him was something that we brought up to the whole team. It’s exactly what we want our culture to look like – putting other people before yourself.”
For Bealer, the decision to give up his starting spot was a no-brainer.
“It was this ongoing thing, and coach was trying to figure it out,” he said. “I was like, ‘You know what, I won’t start.’
“I felt as though being captain it was my job. I felt it was the right thing to do because I want my teammates to be happy. I want them to feel what I feel every game. I’ve started the past two years every game, and I wanted them to feel what it felt like. Some of them had never started before, and I thought that was neat.”
The Indians probably couldn’t have written a better script than the one that played out on Senior Night last Tuesday. Their celebration was capped with a 54-47 win over a Central Bucks South squad that has earned a spot in the upcoming District One 6A Tournament.
“Winning that game was huge for us,” Bealer said. “We’d been on a losing streak, and we all talked about how we wanted to end the season the right way for our coaches, for our fans and for our team.
“We treated that game as if it was a playoff game because going into that game, we thought if we beat them they would be kicked out of the playoffs.”
The Titans still earned a berth in the playoffs, but the game was the consummate team win for the Indians in their season finale.
“I was saying to my coaches the other day – if you would have looked at Michael’s body language the entire game, you would have thought he had 30 that game,” Brown said. “Michael’s the kind of guy that sometimes when he wasn’t hitting shots his body language would tell he wasn’t hitting shots.
“For him to just completely put that stuff behind and be all in on the team and all in on us winning and not worried about his game at all – I’m not sure how to describe it, but it definitely makes me feel good.”
Brown probably shouldn’t have been surprised by Bealer’s selfless gesture. The team’s six seniors – Bealer, Matt Cartwright, Noah Horas, Kaleef Blackwood, Kyle Lennon and Jake Groller – have bought into the first-year coach’s ‘others first’ philosophy since he took over the program.
“As much as we wanted to win and make districts, our first goal this year was building a family, building a brotherhood and setting our culture down in stone,” Brown said. “I think the seniors
bought in on that from day one, and they knew they were going to be the leaders of the whole culture-setting atmosphere.
“They really took that under their wing and ran with it. I think it shows by the way they’re finishing and the way they feel about the season right now and how proud they are of what we built together.”
What this team built was the brotherhood Brown had talked about. Through the ups and downs, they stuck together, never wavering on their belief in the foundation that was being laid.
“Developing that culture was just coming together and getting close to these guys and opening up,” senior co-captain Matt Cartwright said. “Towards the beginning of the season, coach would have a player or two before every practice kind of open up about their life outside of basketball.
“I started that off. He wanted us to get to know everyone and what everyone was doing outside of basketball and just build the friendship and brotherhood. I thought that was great because guys wo
uld open up and you would have the relationships building.
“As a captain, if someone was having a little trouble outside of basketball, I would just check up on them and be like, ‘Hey, how are your doing?’ That really did build the relationships.”
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From the outset, Brown – who was an assistant jayvee coach when the seniors were freshmen – was a natural fit for a team that was adjusting to its third coach in as many seasons.
“Going through three coaches in four years was kind of rough because every coach has a different playing style of what they wanted to do,” Cartwright said. “We were trying to figure out how everyone could find what they do best in each coaching style.
“I think we found our guy in coach Tim to build up the culture, for sure. Us seniors were lucky enough to start off with him.”
“He actually worked his way up with us,” Bealer said of Brown. “It was really cool, and him coming in – everybody already knew him. Everybody had that familiarity.
“We built our family culture a lot more quickly than we planned because everybody was already so close. He brought in two other guys some of us knew from camps, and they were really welcoming and great, so it all worked all really well.”
Midway through the season, the Indians appeared to find their stride with a four-game winning streak, but that was followed by a six-game losing streak before the Indians closed out the year with back-to-back wins.
“When we went on that winning streak, we just really focused on energy, playing as a whole and just being selfless,” Bealer said. “Then we started being all happy that we were winning and not really thinking about being focused.
“We started falling off a little bit, but I think we stayed all in the whole entire time. We all stayed – this is about the team, it’s not about ourselves. We played really hard, we left it all on the court, but it just didn’t work out. That’s just part of the game.”
The team’s bond was never more apparent than in its Senior Night game.
“The whole thing about sharing the ball the whole game – I didn’t score very much that game, but it was definitely my favorite game of the whole year because we got everybody involved,” Bealer said. “Everybody was having a great time, and we won. It was definitely my favorite game of the whole year.”
“For Michael to say that’s his favorite game is awesome because he only had seven points in that game,” Brown said. “That’s his season low.”
That night was about a whole lot more than scoring points for the Indians. It was about closing out a special chapter the right way.
“We sat in the locker room for quite a while after the win,” Brown said. “We realized the chances of us sneaking into districts were slim, so we had a feeling that was our last game together.
“Everybody got to say something about how they felt about each other and how they felt about this season. We could have been 22-0, we could have been 0-22, but what we built together was special and what we’ll always remember. Record aside, it’s about what we built, and I think those guys really bought into that and embraced it.”
“It was a great night,” Cartwright said. “If we would have gone to districts – most teams lose their last game, and they end their senior year on a loss.
“We got to win on our Senior Night, we had all of our fans and families there. I’m glad it ended like it did. We played a good team in CB South, and it was a great way to cap off our careers. It was really something special, and I’m happy it played out like that.”
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There was no mistaking the importance of the team’s senior leadership, most notably the positive leadership of their co-captains. While Bealer put up big numbers, Cartwright was the Indians’ floor general.
“Before every game, I tell him, ‘Have fun coach’ because he’s my coach on the floor,” Brown said. “His mom’s been battling cancer through basically his whole high school career, and the kid that he is – you would never be able to tell.
“He’s just the hardest working kid. He’s hard to describe. He came to practice every day and kind of used the basketball and brotherhood to get away from everything. I think for the other guys to see the way he worked when no one would have blamed him for hanging up the towel and not working at all or coming in and being a little lazy - he came in and gave 120 percent every day. For the whole program to see him put everything behind him and just work the way he did, that’s something we’ll never forget, we’ll never stop talking about.”
For Cartwright, it was about a whole lot more than just basketball.
“After about every practice, I’d stay after and just talk to the coaches, and we’d talk about anything, not basketball-related stuff,” he said. “It was just hanging out with the guys, which was great.
“I have that connection, and my teammates were great this year. I went through a lot of stuff outside of basketball, and those guys were my rock, for sure. Every single one of those guys was supporting me and my family. They’re a great group of guys. I don’t know what I’d do without them. I didn’t have that connection before, and this year was really something special, for sure.”
The season is over for the Indians. They won’t be going to districts, but for this band of brothers, the ending – though difficult – was just about perfect.
“It was hard to say good bye,” Bealer said. “For me especially, I think I probably cried the most of everybody.
“I don’t know – I just felt like I was losing a part of my life, and I was. I love my team, especially this year. It’s my favorite year I’ve had just because we’ve been the closest. I told them to cherish everything that you have, every moment the rest of your careers. Don’t ever take a play off, don’t ever give up on anything, and just enjoy it because it goes by fast.
“It got emotional when (the coaches) started talking about how they’ve seen us really grow over the year. It was definitely a very hard thing to leave the team, but it definitely left us feeling good about the team and how everything ended.”
And in an era when the word culture is thrown around loosely in the world of sports - for this year’s Souderton squad, it wasn’t just lip service. They got it.
“They thanked me for what I’ve done and the work I’ve put in for them, but I have them to thank for absolutely everything,” Brown said. “The amount of work they’ve put in for me and the amount of confidence they’ve given me over the past four years, I can only hope I’ve given them a fraction of what they’ve given me. They’re a really special group. They’re really great kids, and they’re going to have very successful futures, that’s for sure.”
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