Photo: Coach Seeley with his fellow teammates at Springfield College.
Written By Valerie Sliker, courtesy Wagener Monthly
Wagener Salley High School (WSHS) basketball coach, Earl Seeley begins coaching his tenth season with the War Eagles on the first week of November or as soon as his players are freed up from the football season. If the football team goes to the playoffs, their schedule will overlap with the basketball season.
Coach Seeley will run try-outs for three days, then make his team. He usually carries 12 – 15 players. If some guys are good enough to play, Seeley will stretch the team to 15.
I caught up with Coach Seeley in his office on a hot school day in between his Physical Education classes. We sat in his office, sandwiched between trophies and photos of former teams and players making spectacular plays, forever preserved on Seeley’s wall of fame.
First, I asked him if, after 35 years in the business, he is thinking about retirement. Not a bit. “As long as I have my health,” he said, “I can keep going. I love coaching. I love seeing the development of players. I really love seeing guys after they graduate, and how after I’ve had them for four years, they come back and tell me stories, things I’ve forgotten already. These guys remember everything. You think these guys are not listening to you when you are preaching to them, but they’re listening, they hear.”
Second question: Who’s the team to beat this year? Calhoun County has always placed first in the region, but they moved up to 2A this year, so WSHS lost them and gained Estill and Denmark. They’ll be the two teams we’ll struggle with. All the coaches agree: this is the toughest region in the state. We have eight teams battling for the playoff spot while many regions only have four.
“It’s going to be a good season. I like what I see, I really do.” Coach Seeley continued, “I have five seniors returning this year that played varsity last year. I have a few freshmen that are going to be pretty good. It’s going to be a team effort. We’ll be a quick team, an aggressive team. Our strength is going to be defense because I have guys who are going to be really fast. I do have some shooters on the team, too, but you know, I like defense. We’re going to be pressing a lot. We have guys who can run quick, I like that. We have a few good shooters, too. We’re going to be shooting some threes out there.”
Last year, WSHS didn’t make the playoffs, they missed it by one game. That one game still haunts Seeley because, he says, “We actually won the game. We had a buzzer beat. The shot beat the buzzer, but the referee called it off. So I protested it, sent the tape into the league office and they said I was right, but they couldn’t change the game back. We lost that game and it cost us a place in the playoffs.” Seeley still has that tape and admits to still watching it once in a while.
Will next year be tough then, losing so many seniors this year? “I don’t think so. Our freshmen that are playing JV will be ready, that’s a pretty good crop. I’m waiting on one boy in the 8th grade right now who is really good. I was trying to get him to play varsity right now, but his daddy said to let him play one more year in middle school. He’s that good.”
Coach Seeley first played ball in high school at Powers Memorial Academy in New York City, the same school that produced Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and many other NBA players. Seeley had several scholarships, including one to Syracuse, but he chose to attend Springfield College, 90 miles out of Boston, the home of the basketball hall of fame. He played ball at Springfield as a small forward and a guard, graduated with a degree in Physical Education and Health and immediately began his career teaching and coaching.
When Seeley started at WSHS in 2007, the school didn’t have a girls’ coach, had no junior varsity team and only six guys on the varsity. He coached varsity boys and varsity girls for a few years, then just junior varsity boys and varsity boys and now, just varsity boys. While coaching the girls, he took them to the playoffs in Great Falls and has bad memories of the truck breaking down and the team arriving late and worn out. Sgt. Moses Brown is coaching the girls team this year.
As I admire the photos on his office wall, Coach Seeley says, “We’ve had our ups and downs. We had a good run for three or four years in 2012, ended up 19 – 5, and going as far as the second round in the state playoffs. 2012 - 2014 was one of the best teams that we have ever had. We always ended up second or third in the region. Calhoun County was always first. We were the only team that beat Calhoun County in 2012. And it was at their place! Nobody had done that in many years.”
Seeley’s pretty proud of that team. “I think it was in 2014 that we went to Blackville for the Christmas tournament. I had no expectations for that tournament and we ended up winning. We beat some tough teams in that tournament. I’ve had some good teams along the way, hopefully we can continue it.” Seeley concluded our interview by escorting me through the boys’ locker room and let me tell you, that was quite an experience.
View the WSHS basketball schedule.