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Overbrook basketball on the rise again

01/26/2018, 11:15am EST
By Josh Verlin

Cyrie Coates (above) and Overbrook are trying to get to the school's first state tournament. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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There is a specter that still looms over a school in West Philadelphia.

A presence that inhabits the castle-like structure on Lancaster Avenue that is Overbrook High School, a remnant of a time when the neighborhood which borders the lush suburban landscapes of Lower Merion was one of the nicest in the city. It exists in the nooks and crannies, in the classrooms and on the sidewalks. And it’s palpable, especially in the gym named in his honor.

“He’s all over the school, so you can’t help but to think about him,” Overbrook coach Keenan Rand said. “Especially when you come into the gym, his picture is the first thing you see when you come into the gym. It’s hard not to think about Wilt Chamberlain.”

Chamberlain, in case you needed a reminder, is the most dominant basketball player to ever come out of the City of Brotherly Love.

The NBA’s rebounding leader (22.9/game) and 13-time All-Star was a game-changing force in the post, a 7-foot-1 dynamo who averaged over 50 points per game in his third professional season. He famously set the league’s scoring record with a 100-point game. He was so single-handedly dominant, he forced both the NBA and NCAA to ban dunking for a time.

And his career began at Overbrook High School, where he led the Panthers to city titles now over 60 years in the past. Chamberlain helped begin a tradition of basketball greatness at the ‘Brook: more than 10 NBA players have come out of the school, though all are long since retired. The program’s last city championship, according to the banners that hang in the gymnasium, came in 1980.

But there’s no denying that Wilt’s presence dominates, even six decades after he last walked the halls.

“[I think about him] every time I walk in, every time I walk in,” senior Cyrie Coates said. “This gym is called the Wilt gym -- we come in here, we work hard.”

Much has changed at Overbrook over the decades, both in the neighborhood and the school itself. But for the first time in a while, the basketball program is starting to find its way back.

Though the Panthers have had some decent seasons in the last 20 years, they haven’t finished atop any division of the Public League since the 1996-97 season, when -- according to local hoops history and former longtime Daily News scribe Ted Silary -- Overbrook finished atop the Pub’s C-D Division with a 16-0 record, led by eventual St. Joe’s wing Naim Crenshaw.

This year could finally see an end to that streak.

A 77-59 win over String Theory Charter on Thursday afternoon kept Overbrook right in the hunt for a first-place finish in the Public League ‘C’ Division, improving to 10-1, tied with a Robeson squad that’s the only one to beat them in league play. It’s already a step up from last season, when they finished 8-5 in league play and flamed out in the early stages of the Public League playoffs.

But the Panthers have a bigger target in mind: the school’s first-ever trip to the state tournament.

Rand has played a big role in rejuvenating Overbrook in his two years at the school. A 29-year-old West Philadelphia native, he attended City Center Academy for high school, then played at Delaware County Community College and Penn State-Abington before he said he spent the following years as a financial advisor. Now he works full-time at Overbrook as part of the ‘climate staff,’ making sure students are in class and getting their work done.

He’s not afraid of the past and all the success the program has had -- meeting people such as Wilt’s former high school coach, Cecil Mosenson, and scores of Overbrook alumni who are itching to see the basketball program regain some of its former glory has only inspired him.

“I definitely embrace it, just trying to get back to that Overbrook tradition,” Rand said. “Try to get the guys to understand how great the tradition at Overbrook is, and how lucky they are to be in this position right now.”

Though this group has the potential to be one of the best Overbrook teams in recent memory, it could have been even stronger. Yazid Powell, one of several players new to the school this year, was the only one to have his transfer waiver denied after coming over from West Philadelphia, though he never played there after originally attending Boys’ Latin to begin his junior year.

“At first, it was bad, everybody wasn’t focused, everybody was upset,” Coates said, “It was like, do it for Zid, got to do it for Zid. And that’s how it’s been, that’s who we’re doing it for.”

Coates was a man amongst boys in the win over String Theory, which came into Overbrook a one-loss team in league play and left needing a lot of luck to finish the season on top. The 6-foot-4 wing had 25 points and 13 rebounds to go along with four steals. Raquan West added 15 points and Khalif Washington 11 for the Panthers, who improved to 11-6 overall.

In the past few years, Overbrook AD Bob Miller has helped the school replace its old backboards with working ones, getting rid of the old hand-cranked buckets for more modern, automatic-lifting baskets. There’s new padding on both baselines, and a large banner of Wilt’s stamp which was released four years ago.

Miller said he’s also working on making some repairs to the one set of sideline bleachers; that and a new set of lights -- supposed to be coming before Overbrook hosts the district wrestling championships next year -- would go a long way towards bringing the Chamberlain Gymnasium from a dark basement lair into a home court fit for its namesake.

The last piece to the puzzle would be accomplishing something no other Panthers team ever has.

Overbrook, which is in the 4A classification in the PIAA, is very much in the running for a berth in the state tournament, but it’s no sure thing. District 12, which comprises the Public League and Catholic League, gets four bids into the state tournament; three from the Pub and one from the PCL.

Last year, Imhotep, West Philadelphia and Audenried took the three Pub spots. Imhotep is arguably the most dominant team in the city, and should have no problem taking one of them; Audenried is 0-7 in the Pub’s top division, while both West Philadelphia and Ben Franklin have just one win in the ‘B’ Division, though Bartram is 6-2.

Should Imhotep and Bartram get the first two spots -- determined by who advances furthest in the Public League playoffs -- the third could be very much up to Overbrook and String Theory, also a 4A school.

If Overbrook can advance far enough to earn that spot, this year’s Panthers could do something Wilt’s teams never did, considering the Public League was only admitted to the PIAA in the late 00s.

“Brook’s never been to states before -- we take them there, that’s big for us,” Coates said. “We’re really trying to put the school back on the map.”


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