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Brooks leading hoops renaissance at Spring Grove

10/15/2015, 5:45pm EDT
By Michael Bullock

Eli Brooks (above, in May with the Jersey Shore Warriors) plays under his father, James Brooks, at Spring Grove. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Michael Bullock (@thebullp_n)
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SPRING GROVE — Parked comfortably in Spring Grove High School’s palatial gymnasium late Wednesday afternoon, James Brooks and his youngest son, Eli, were hardly surprised when a custodian approached with a friendly request.

“I need a free T-shirt with his autograph on it,” the custodian said to the elder Brooks while pointing at the Rockets’ talented junior.

In an instant, both father and son were grinning — and laughing heartily.

Cracked James Brooks: “Our custodians love coming to games.”

So, apparently, do plenty of others, their excitement rekindled by a rapidly improving Rockets program fueled by the multi-talented yet remarkably humble Eli Brooks and piloted by his quietly confident father, James, the former Gettysburg High School star and East Stroudsburg University standout.

Perennial hammers in the early 1960s when boys’ basketball was king in this industrious western York County mill town — Spring Grove’s last basketball crown, a YAIAA Division I title, was won in 1995 — the Rockets are in the midst of a hoops renaissance that’s enraptured the locals and fostered plenty of fond memories.

Even Division I recruiters have made their way to Spring Grove — which sits just minutes west of York yet seems so distant from the nearby city  — stepping inside the gym to watch Brooks and his teammates drill and play pickup games.

Mid-majors such as Saint Joseph’s and La Salle made the trek last month from Philadelphia, while a number of smaller D-Is and schools from lower divisions also have been in the gym. Even Notre Dame stopped by to check on the springy 6-0, 165-pound lead guard with the wingspan of a small forward.

James Madison was planning to visit Wednesday — Eli’s mother, Kelly, was waiting in the school lobby to greet the Dukes’ rep — but didn’t make it.

“When Notre Dame walked in, that was a big surprise,” Eli Brooks admitted on Wednesday, his 17th birthday. “It was just good to see them, see all the hard work pay off and all the lessons my Dad taught me.”

Having soaked up plenty, the younger Brooks has all the requisite skills needed to thrive at the lead guard role — dependable handle, vision, passing ability and an eerily calm demeanor that prevents defenders from reading him — he also packs the explosion to torch an adversary and get to the rack, enough range to attack from deep and an improving pull-up jumper that merely ups his flammability index.

Factor in his wingspan — Brooks has the reach belonging to someone 6-6 or slightly taller — and one can see why he’s adept at jamming up passing lanes with his length or succeeding on the glass against much taller and much beefier players.

Not to mention throwing it down — a 4-10 Brooks was dunking on a rim some 7-1/2 feet high some three years ago — on an unsuspecting opponent.

“I like grabbing boards because I don’t feel like waiting for the ball,” said Eli Brooks, who last season as a sophomore averaged 20.1 points and 8.0 rebounds per outing for a Spring Grove club (15-10) that won its first District 3-AAAA playoff game in nearly two decades. He also averaged 2.4 assists and 1.0 blocked shots.

And while his basketball acumen is off the charts — one might attribute Brooks’ ability to soak up the game to being the son of a coach and the grandson of a coach, even though his grandfather coached football and wrestling at Spring Grove — the younger Brooks didn’t hesitate to reveal another of his secrets.

Pssst, he’s ambidextrous.

“We just played at Kutztown [University] in a team tournament and the Norristown coach was like, ‘Keep it out of his right hand. Keep it out of his right hand,” Eli Brooks joked. “I just dribbled down the lane with my left and scored with my left hand. … I like finishing with my left hand.”

While nearby Mount St. Mary’s (Md.) was the first D-I program to indicate its interest — Jamion Christian’s Mountaineers were the first to offer Brooks in mid-June — Penn, George Mason, Lafayette, Monmouth, Drexel and Colgate also have extended offers. His recent play on the AAU circuit with the Jersey Shore Warriors, first with the 16Us and then with the 17Us, unquestionably helped.

Yet while his sparkling play has caught the attention of college recruiters from various levels, Brooks’ presence on his hometown Rockets has thrilled custodians, teachers and long-standing Spring Grove partisans alike.

In fact, the younger crowd can’t get enough of Brooks. Even while sitting in the Spring Grove gym, he flashed grins and waves to everyone passing through. 

Same thing happens at the local supermarket and pizza shops.

“It’s been great,” an appreciative James Brooks said. “People wanted something to cheer for in Spring Grove and they wanted basketball back. We are fortunate just to be putting a little more time and effort in to making it happen. I take time to thank people that come into the gym. I get my players to thank [everyone].

“And we do all kinds of community service to make sure they see us out there and we want them to come,” James continued. “We have our youth program wanting to come to games and drag their grandparents and parents to come to games. Where I used to beg people to come, now they’re coming and hopefully we get to the point where we start to sell this gym out.”

It’s become more than just coming to the gym, however.

“I can’t go anywhere without getting stopped,” admitted Eli, who has pocketed 808 career points thus far and is poised to join an eight-man 1,000-point club that includes such Spring Grove hoops luminaries as 1962 graduate and former Richmond standout Ross “Spike” Welsh and 1981 alumnus and former Army All-American Randy Cozzens. Both collected 1,000-plus points at the next level.

Cozzens, in fact, rang up nearly 2,000 during his four-year run at West Point.

“It feels great to bring basketball back to Spring Grove and just having people come back out,” Eli Brooks continued. “Meeting Spike Welsh, he’s a really nice guy.

“I feel like I can learn a lot from him.”

A solid student with a 3.0 grade-point average, Brooks has learned from plenty of others, too — even at the dinner table. And, apparently, he is more than willing to pass along his knowledge to future Rockets players.

“He’s really bought into what we were talking about for years [and it] is paying off,” James Brooks. “Be that fundamental guy that can shoot, pass, look for others, be unselfish and be a good teammate. All those things and be a role model for younger kids that want to be like you, he’s really taken that to the next level.

“He’s an ambassador to our program. We send him out to the little kids and they just love him as a basketball player and they just love him as a young adult, [so much so], that they want to be like him. You can’t get any better as a coach or a parent that somebody is telling their kids, “I hope you turn out like Eli.”


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