A Nebraska High School Coach Died During the Season. His Team Inspired a Community.

GRETNA, Neb. — This isn’t a tale about highschool basketball. It’s now not a couple of precious trainer who died halfway via a season. It’s now not a tale of redemption, sorrow or success.

It’s about togetherness. This is a tale about group and a workforce that has printed, via its resilience and combat to honor a misplaced chief, what the most productive of sports activities looks as if.

Wednesday evening at Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Neb., Gretna High School will play a first-round sport within the Class A boys state event in opposition to Millard North.

Brad Feeken coached the Dragons to win. He coached them with a keenness identified round Nebraska. His demise at age 48 on Dec. 30, 2023, after a struggle of greater than two years with neuroendocrine most cancers marked a brand new bankruptcy for his gamers.

Gretna begins 5 seniors and brings two others off the bench. Landon Pokorski, Alex Wilcoxson, Alec Wilkins, Kade Cook, Joey Vieth, Chase Doble and Avery Schendt have already secured their legacies. This week issues little for the way they’ll be remembered — and nonetheless, it approach such a lot for them to reach on this place on the state event after months of ache.

On the morning Feeken died, Gretna’s gamers and coaches collected at their highschool. They felt extra supplied to transport ahead as a bunch reasonably than for my part. The agenda confirmed a sport later that day within the quarterfinals of the Metro Conference vacation event.

The Dragons selected to play. Nine hours later in an emotionally charged health club, Pokorski sank a game-winning buzzer-beater. He pointed a finger skyward as teammates mobbed him. Pokorski believed that if he lofted the ball excellent, Feeken would assist it in finding the online.

Could now not have written it higher. #Gretna (@gretnabball) upsets Papio South on a buzzer-beater by the use of senior @LandonPokorski simply over 12 hours after #Dragons head trainer Brad Feeken gave up the ghost 🏀🐉💚
@GEHSGriffins @WOWT6News#nebpreps #ForFeek pic.twitter.com/TMu09zUnw9

— Grace Boyles (@GraceBBoyles) December 31, 2023

From that second, the men confirmed the way in which. As Feeken’s situation worsened final fall, folks, lecturers and supporters in Gretna ready to carry the workforce up.

It has opened up simply the other — with the ones seniors inspiring a group looking for solutions.

“They just keep showing up,” stated Travis Lightle, the Gretna Public Schools superintendent. “They just show up. They’re there for each other. With how they treat the fans, the little kids, they say, ‘This is what (Feeken) would want us to do.’ And when you watch them, they are playing exactly how he would want.

“They’re not angry. They’re not bitter. They just continue to do the right things.”

My view on Gretna basketball is skewed. I’m biased. Too with reference to it, too invested.

I resisted for months to the touch this tale professionally. But final week, one thing modified. I’ll get to that.

First, some background. I’ve lived in Gretna with my spouse Shannon since 2005. Both of our youngsters had been born right here. They’ve grown up as a part of this swelling suburb southwest of Omaha that’s nonetheless sufficiently small to foster an attachment.

Ten years in the past, I coached T-ball with Bill Heard. His daughter was once 6. Mine was once 7. An established assistant on Feeken’s Gretna bench, Heard took over the basketball workforce when his outdated school teammate grew too unwell to train.

He has mourned the lack of his very best buddy for the previous 9 weeks. Heard additionally runs the Gretna softball program, and he plans to train each sports activities as his two youngsters development via highschool.

Feeken gained two state titles in 21 years as the top trainer, however he impacted extra lives in Gretna as a seventh-grade studying trainer. My daughter realized about lifestyles in his school room 4 years in the past. Few lecturers supposed extra to her.

My son attended his basketball camps. Feeken’s groups embodied his vigorous personality. This piece written by means of Dirk Chatelain fantastically captures the Feeken spirit.

When he were given unwell, the group rallied at the back of the trainer, his spouse, Jenny, and their youngsters, Rylinn, 13, Maylee, 11, and John, who grew to become 7 final month.

This was once the scene two weeks in the past for an match put in combination on quick realize. If there were room, I don’t have any doubt extra other folks than are living in all of Gretna would have proven as much as give a boost to Feeken and his circle of relatives. pic.twitter.com/0dobg200TO

— Mitch Sherman (@mitchsherman) December 30, 2023

In his ultimate weeks, Feeken hooked up with Brad Stevens, common supervisor and previous trainer of his cherished Boston Celtics. Nebraska trainer Fred Hoiberg and Creighton’s Greg McDermott voiced their admiration for Feeken.

As phrase unfold of Feeken’s demise, my circle of relatives, like many others, felt referred to as on Dec. 30 to wait the Dragons’ Metro Conference event sport. In that health club at Omaha Creighton Prep, the instant of silence and pregame tribute to Feeken added to a temper in contrast to the rest I’ve skilled — a mixture of disbelief, heartbreak and unravel.

In a height nook of the seating space, Hoiberg watched.

“It honestly was one of the more special games that I’ve witnessed in person,” the Nebraska trainer informed me this week.

Gretna jumped to a 15-point lead at halftime in opposition to Papillion-LaVista South, then noticed it disappear as the load of the instant took hang.

“We’ll never play in a game like that again,” Pokorski stated. “It still hasn’t fully hit me how hard that day was, how hard that game was.”

When Pokorski drove to the baseline within the final seconds, with Gretna down 48-47, Hoiberg predicted out loud that the shot would fall.

A the town held its breath.

“To see the reaction of the team, those guys all hugging out on the court and crying, I know they did it for Brad, what he meant for those kids,” Hoiberg stated. “It was emotional. I got a tear in my eye.”

He was once some distance from on my own.

The tears didn’t prevent on that Saturday evening. Nine days after Feeken died, Rylinn, his older daughter, delivered a tribute to her father at his memorial carrier.

Heard eulogized Feeken. Pokorski and Wilcoxson spoke to his legacy. For years, they stated, Feeken preached to them in regards to the significance of “doing hard things.”

Three of Gretna’s 5 losses this season got here within the first 18 days of January. It was once a troublesome time.

“Basketball was secondary,” Heard stated. “But basketball was really important because it’s the place where we all got to be together. It was evident that the kids needed it. I needed it.”

Feeken famously left motivational messages on sticky notes for his gamers to search out. In January, Jenny Feeken took his position, sending textual content messages to the seven Gretna seniors.

They obtain snippets from “Pound the Stone: 7 Lessons to Develop Grit on the Path to Mastery,” a e book that Jenny is studying with Rylinn and Maylee.

The frequency of her messages higher final month as event time neared. Lately, she’s reminded the seniors that they’re in a position for no matter lifestyles gifts.

“Everything has been hard for them,” she stated. “It helps me. They’re telling me that they like it, so I hope it helps them, too.”

The Dragons gained 9 consecutive video games ahead of a three-point defeat within the regular-season finale in opposition to top-ranked Bellevue West. The loss knocked Gretna from a bunch place in state-tournament qualifying district play and arrange a Feb. 27 go back and forth to Kearney High School in central Nebraska.

In Kearney’s hornet’s nest of a three,000-seat health club, the trail of this season modified for Gretna. Basketball got here roaring again to the leading edge. Another bankruptcy started. It was once Feeken’s more or less evening. And once more, the Dragons confirmed their power.

Late within the district ultimate, crowd noise shook the ground. Gretna gained 65-63 to protected a go back and forth to the state event as a Kearney halfcourt heave on the buzzer hit the rim.

Conceivably, no workforce within the state can have treated that wild setting in addition to Gretna. In the birthday party, Rylinn and Maylee reduce the general strands of the online from the edges. The nets went again to Gretna with the women.

“Just one of those moments that’s so much bigger than a ball game,” Heard stated.

Likewise, Heard stated, the state event frequently elicits exaggerated feelings.

Gretna, in seasons previous, has felt the postseason force. Last yr in Lincoln, Millard North beat the Dragons within the semifinal around. Officials waved off a Pokorski bucket within the ultimate seconds. Video of the play displays Feeken, stomping towards the motion ahead of Millard North held directly to win 54-52.

The similar Mustangs eradicated Gretna two years in the past within the semifinals and in 2021 district play. The Dragons’ historical past in opposition to Millard North looms of their minds, Pokorski stated.

But force for Gretna? Not a possibility with this workforce.

“When you’ve been through what we’ve been through off the court,” stated Pokorski, the unflappable level guard set to play at Southwest Minnesota State, “it tends to make basketball a little easier. What we were supposed to do this year, we already did.

“Our purpose was way bigger than basketball.”

(Top photograph of Bill Heard and Gretna’s 5 senior starters (seated), courtesy of Nicole Stuchlik)