exbull
04-09-2015, 01:20 PM
From the Wise County Messenger
SPORTS HEADLINES
Basketball: Clearing up title talk
By Travis Lisle | Published Saturday, March 28, 2015
Before season started, the buzz was alive in North Texas basketball circles.
“Mark Cuban’s sister has some foster kids at Bridgeport.”
“Michael Finley’s kid is playing at Bridgeport.”
“Bridgeport moved in these four kids and put them in a house together to play basketball there.”
Rumors and speculation ran rampant about juniors – Keenan Holdman, Devonte Patterson, Caleb Smith and Ethan Chapman – that moved into Wise County and enrolled at Bridgeport.
With no official word about them, the misinformation snowballed and peaked at the state tournament, where fans and media were skeptical of the Bulls’ championship.
After hoisting the 4A state championship trophy and accounting for 456 of the Bulls’ 519 playoff points, people wanted answers about their sudden arrival.
SHARING IN THE JOY – Devonte Patterson holds Noah, Neal Hawks’ son, after the state title game. Messenger Photo by Joe Duty
The story begins with Neal Hawks, a Nebraskan often referred to as a prominent businessman and Mark Cuban’s brother-in-law (they married sisters).
Unlike the Dallas Mavericks’ owner, Hawks is reserved and calculated in his public life. He keeps to himself and doesn’t like to do interviews.
The son of Howard and Myrna Hawks said his father was the first in his family to leave the farm, attending college at the University of Nebraska before taking a job with GM in Anderson, Ind.
Howard is now chairman of the board of regents at Nebraska.
After GM, the Hawks patriarch served as president of three subsidiary groups, Northern Natural Resources, Northern Liquid Fuels Group and Northern Plains Natural Gas Co., before founding the energy company Tenaska.
Hawks also attended the University of Nebraska, earning a law degree, and after working for a corporation in Omaha, he began a career in real estate.
He discovered a passion for the game of basketball at Nebraska and joined a traveling basketball team comprised of ex-Huskers who played all over the country for about 10 years.
Though Hawks isn’t one to reveal his exact worth, he humbly admits that he has been fortunate when it comes to his money and success.
He also gained a passion for charity, especially involving children. That passion indirectly brought him to where he is today with six boys under his roof.
Neal Hawks
A single man at the time, Hawks became the legal guardian of Chapman in 2007, and after marrying his wife, Jamie, in 2010, the Hawks’ life changed even more when they received a call from an aquaintance in Flower Mound where they were living at the time.
“One day out of the blue, my wife got a call from a lady that she knew but didn’t know well,” Hawks said. “She told my wife about this young man [LaJohn Williams] who needed help because of his home and school situation. This was about four years ago, and we had him come over and talked to him.
“Jamie and I really liked him, so he moved in with us and went through three years at Flower Mound High and is now at college.”
Soon after, Keenan Holdman came into the fold and found his place as part of the Hawks’ family. Then Caleb Smith followed.
Hawks said that he simply saw opportunities to give these kids a better education and living situation. He said the boys were behind academically, so they decided to help them “catch up” by homeschooling.
“After my wife and I discussed it, we decided that homeschooling was the way to go because we have the ability to have a tutor/teacher work with them 1-on-1 or 1-on-3 and you can focus on the areas that they need help in moreso than an eight-period school schedule where you’re in class with a 30 other people and one teacher for 50 minutes a session,” Hawks explained.
Devonte Patterson was the last boy to join the Hawks family.
“We got a call one day from a gentleman in Wichita, Kan., that I had never spoken to before in my life,” Hawks said. “I didn’t know his name or anything about him. Somehow he had heard that we helped kids.
“I find it interesting that it gets around like that,” he said. “He told us all about Devonte. Devonte’s grandmother had recently died, and she was the glue that held the family together. We had him come down for a weekend, and we loved his infectious personality.”
Though the transition from Patterson’s life in Wichita to his new home with the Hawks wasn’t perfect, they eventually became a tight-knit family unit. When Neal and Jamie had their first biological child, Noah, Patterson’s relationship with his new brother was unbreakable.
“They share a bond that is pretty incredible,” Hawks said. “We’ve been very fortunate to have Devonte come into our lives. Where he was then, and where he has gotten himself to is nothing short of incredible.
“When he moved in with us, he had never played an organized sport. So the Devonte Patterson you see down on the floor of the Alamodome kicking some butt is a long way removed from the kid that moved in with us and had never played basketball almost four years ago. He’s done that himself. He worked and worked at it and put thousands of hours in the gym and weightroom.”
With five young men living and studying under their roof, Hawks wanted the boys to experience the thrill and life lessons learned from organized sports.
He formed the Flower Mound Rebels with other homeschooled kids.
“When we were the eighth-grade Flower Mound Rebels, we had nine or 10 kids,” Hawks said. “It wasn’t just kids that lived in my house. There’s a lot of homeschool teams out there. We had a good time doing it. When we were a freshman team … we probably played about 70 games, some were local and others we had to travel to.
“We’d take our tutor along with us, and that’s the great thing about homeschool is you can take kids all over and they can still take care of their school work,” he said.
As the team traveled, Hawks took the boys to museums, making lifelong memories and increasing the boys’ knowledge and understanding of how the country works.
In 2011, Hawks approached coach Brad Chasteen to coach the Rebels. Chasteen was teaching and coaching at Coppell High School at the time. He was originally skeptical of Hawks’ motives.
“Being a traditional coaching guy, I was a little hesitant,” Chasteen said. “In 2011-12, I worked them out Sunday nights, and I got to see up close and personal what these boys were about.
“It was a unique situation,” he said. “They had a tremendous passion.”
After the 2012 school year, Chasteen retired from Coppell and began coaching the Rebels, traveling all over the globe with Hawks and the boys.
“It was something that I would never have had the chance to do on my own,” Chasteen said. “I got to ‘double-dip’ as they say, being paid to coach the Rebels and also collecting retirement. My kids were out of school by that time so it was the perfect situation for us.”
Being so close to the boys, Chasteen said that they showed all of the characteristics of brothers.
“When you homeschool and live together and play ball together, you’re together more than average brothers,” he said. “If they didn’t care about each other and love each other, they couldn’t make it work.” Chasteen believes the boys not only advanced academically with their studies, but they also advanced at five times the rate of his average pupil.
“There’s no question that the extra work they have done has sped up the learning curve significantly,” he said. “If these kids were under my tutelage in a traditional setting, they would be good players but not where they are now.”
The boys also got advice and coaching from Mavericks legend Michael Finley.
“If I had to pick a guy out of the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex that I would like my kids to mold themselves after, it would probably be Michael Finley,” said Hawks, who met him during his charity work.
Hawks said that after Finley took a front office job with the Mavericks, his ability to work with the boys was limited due to NBA rules regarding employees and high school athletes.
Last year, Neal and Jamie decided that it was time to bring the boys into a public school environment.
Williams was heading to Blinn College and the other four boys were at a point where Hawks felt they could handle their studies on their own.
“My wife and I talked about it and we decided that if we wanted the boys to be successful in college, and we hope that all four of the juniors and LaJohn down at Blinn will complete college, they needed to get back into a setting where they were responsible to eight or 10 people a day,” Hawks said.
Looking for the ideal community, Hawks discovered Bridgeport.
Bridgeport’s size and location were a draw – a small-town feel that was out of the Metroplex, but also close enough to attend Mavericks and Dallas Cowboys games.
With Jamie’s family in Rockwall and Dallas, and Bridgeport being right along the road to to their ranch in Rotan, the location couldn’t have been better.
The Hawks built a home on 15 acres that could house two adults, a nanny/tutor, six young men and a young child.
“I hope everybody noticed that we didn’t come in and rent a house,” Hawks said. “We came in and built a house. We’re here in Bridgeport and we intend to stay in Bridgeport.
“The people have welcomed us with open arms and that’s probably been the best thing about our move. The friends we’ve made and the kids just being fully accepted in the school and the community has been amazing. We all know about the awful stuff going on in Ferguson, Mo., but I want to say that we have not experienced any of that in Bridgeport. The people, community and schools have been great. We love it here.”
Hawks and the boys also had fun with the Bridgeport/Decatur rivalry.
“The kids had some great signs,” Hawks laughingly admited. “We took a lot of them home. ‘Bridgeport Hawks’ and ‘Put in the Bridgeport kids now.’ None of them were mean-spirited and I thought they were pretty funny.”
Hawks is puzzled by the rumor that his boys were somehow recruited by Bridgeport.
“Why would we come to Bridgeport for basketball?” Hawks questioned. “No offense to anyone, but that seems like a pretty unlikely scenario.”
Other rumors regarding the Bulls’ new players centered on Hawks and his relationship with the boys. To some degree, Hawks understands why people would question their unique situation and how it relates to youth sports.
“It makes sense in a couple of ways to me,” he said. “I certainly don’t want to include everybody in Wise County or everybody in Texas, but I think there are a lot of people out there in our society that don’t think that you would actually just help kids to help them. There has to be some kind of other motive, and that’s a sad thing. I like kids. My wife and I like kids. We’re really fortunate to have these boys in our home and have them be part of our family. We’re proud of them and happy that we made the discision to help them.”
He adds: “This doesn’t have anything to do with basketball. LaJohn, as a matter of fact, is about 5’7″ so I’m pretty sure that when we told him he could move in with us and we’d help him, basketball wasn’t at the forefront of our mind. It’s not about that, and I’m sure there are a lot of people who will look at that statement with skepticism. We use athletics as a spring board to success academically and behaviorally.”
When speaking on his role in the boys’ lives, Hawks’ says that it is close to father and son.
“It’s maybe not exactly father/son but it has a lot of father/son components to it,” he said. “We have our fun and our love and our family time. From the background that some of them came from there probably weren’t too many rules and I’ve got a lot more rules than they would like to have.”
Those rules include a 10:30 bed time on school nights and them leaving their cell phones in the downstairs kitchen before heading upstairs for bed.
Hawks also wants them to keep some perspective on life, buying them older, but reliable used cars instead of brand new cars. Hawks says that if they weren’t involved in sports, he would expect his boys to get jobs and contribute by paying for things that he and Jamie currently provide.
When it comes to school work, there is no compromise.
“We don’t care if you play basketball,” he explained. “We expect respect in our house for Jamie and I and for your brothers. We expect you to work hard in school. You’re not going to get anywhere if you don’t work hard at school. Basketball is irrelevant if you don’t work hard at school. I try to stay out of them deciding what they want to do, and what they don’t want to do. When I get involved is when they decide to do something, we’re going to do it to the best of their ability. We’re not going to do anything half way. I believe in that.”
Hawks appears to practice what he preaches, teaming up with John Robinson, owner of JRob’s to establish a workout regimen with the boys.
Robinson said that the beginning of their training had more to do with getting their bodies right and preparing a foundation. Once that was accomplished, their performance on the court skyrocketed. Robinson also focused attention to the mental aspect of their training, throwing new things at them in workouts and forcing them to overcome the mental walls physical fatigue can build. Robinson says that their mental toughness was on full display at the state tournament in the Alamodome.
“You saw the other teams start to slow down or have to substitute,” he said. “But these kids got faster and stronger as the game went on. That’s because they’ve done the work and earned that ability. The training we do is a lot about taking on more once you’re tired.” They also continued their work with Chasteen which the retired Coppell coach hoped would not step on the toes of Alan Green, the Bulls head coach.
“During the regular season there is some shooting and skill work,” he said. “I try to coordinate with Coach Green. Usually the travel team coach isn’t in unison with the high school coach. It’s the opposite. There have been times when the whole program comes and works with me two nights a week and sometimes three.”
He also praised Green for how he molded the team and guided them through the season and the playoffs on the way to a championship.
As much as Chasteen, Finley, Green and Robinson have helped the four boys understand what it takes to be great basketball players, Hawks hopes that he can show them what it takes to be good to others.
“I’ve always tried to include them in our Seats for Soldiers night where we get all of the front row seats for a Mavs game and give them to wounded soldiers from the Brooke Army Medical Center,” he said. “I think the important lesson for them is that they’re fortunate right now. There’s a lot of people in the world that aren’t as fortunate, and whether they need your help financially if you’re able to give it, or they just need a hug or a smile and some encouragement…there’s a lot of people out there that need help and I hope that if they’re in position to do that, they will step up and do that stuff.”
Last Christmas, Hawks got in touch with a woman that had recently moved out of a shelter and into an apartment with her two sons. He and Jamie encouraged their boys to help buy presents for all three and give the small single-mother family a special holiday.
That Christmas was also memorable for the boys because it happened to be right in the middle of their dominant 2014 basketball season.
At one point, however, it seemed that their state championship hopes might be derailed when Devonte Patterson was suddenly suspended from the team. The suspension only fueled the rumor fire that had spread across the area. Hawks was willing to shed a little light on what happened that day.
“I’m not going to go into the details for him because he is still a student,” he said about Patterson. “Devonte made a mistake. He’s 18-years old and he owned up to it. He has satisfied the school’s punishment for it. He’s still satisfying my punishment for it at home. I will say that it wasn’t for the consumption of drugs or alcohol, because that rumor is out there. He also has not failed a drug test or anything like that. I’m actually proud of him for the way he’s handled it. He’s moved forward and, like I said, he’s still satisfying his home requirements but we’re moving on.”
When Patterson returned to the team after fulfilling his suspension, the Bulls continued their trail to the state tournament.
In San Antonio, speculation about the Bulls picked up.
But Hawks says the boys’ ability to play legitimately under UIL rules was proven well before the season.
“There’s different provisions in the UIL bilaws and constitutions for different types of guardianship,” Hawks said. “We’re aware of those rules and we vetted them. We went to the Bridgeport superintendent and athletic director and we’re comfortable with where we’re at on those rules and that we’ve complied with them.
“One thing I’d like to clear up is that we’re referred to as transfers a lot. We’re not transfers, we’re move-ins. We’ve never participated in any UIL contest for any other schools, so we’re not tranfers, we’re move-ins.”
Cuban was also brought up at the tournament and though Mark’s wife Tiffany, and Neal’s wife Jamie are sisters, Neal describes he and Mark’s relationship as a friendship that doesn’t require them to hang out together all of the time. He says that they don’t see each other that often and that Cuban’s involvement with the Bridgeport Bulls is nonexistant.
The real story is that these move-ins came to Bridgeport to be part of a community, and in return, they brought the town its first state championship. Hawks said that it’s the community of Bridgeport that makes the state championship so special.
“They haven’t always had that support,” Hawks said. “They’ve played in a lot of empty gyms. Now, they have this community that they’re entrenched in with all of this support. I think it might actually mean more to them than anybody else, because it means so much to them being accepted by our new friends in Bridgeport.”
Hawks says that the boys have started working out again with Robinson after a two-week hiatus from their more extreme training following the title run. LaJohn is doing well at Blinn.
Keenan Holdman was named to the National Honor Society Wednesday night and Caleb and Ethan are making A’s and B’s. Hawks also says that Patterson is close to being an A/B student. Neal and Jamie continue to work with Big Brother Big Sister, where Hawks says that he’s been for 10-15 years. He is also on the board of an organization called Promising Youth Alliance, or PYA, a collaboration between the Boys and Girls Club, Big Brother Big Sister and Phoenix house that allows them to help underprivaledged children who have also been around drug and alcohol abuse.
The two parents are bracing themselves for the next four kids leaving the nest after next year.
“They will all have opportunities beyond high school,” Chasteen said. “Coach Green and I talk to Divison I college coaches all the time.
“That being said, there will come a day when there’s no more basketball. Hopefully they can transfer what they’ve learned from me, Neal and Coach Green into everyday life.”
Many have speculated a great deal about this team that came together in Bridgeport and took the 4A state title.
Many people have opinions about who these boys are, who Neal Hawks is, and how the town of Bridgeport got their state championship. Many of those opinions had little factual ground to stand on. Perhaps now the stories told about Bridgeport’s state championship can just be about a great team that won it all.
SPORTS HEADLINES
Basketball: Clearing up title talk
By Travis Lisle | Published Saturday, March 28, 2015
Before season started, the buzz was alive in North Texas basketball circles.
“Mark Cuban’s sister has some foster kids at Bridgeport.”
“Michael Finley’s kid is playing at Bridgeport.”
“Bridgeport moved in these four kids and put them in a house together to play basketball there.”
Rumors and speculation ran rampant about juniors – Keenan Holdman, Devonte Patterson, Caleb Smith and Ethan Chapman – that moved into Wise County and enrolled at Bridgeport.
With no official word about them, the misinformation snowballed and peaked at the state tournament, where fans and media were skeptical of the Bulls’ championship.
After hoisting the 4A state championship trophy and accounting for 456 of the Bulls’ 519 playoff points, people wanted answers about their sudden arrival.
SHARING IN THE JOY – Devonte Patterson holds Noah, Neal Hawks’ son, after the state title game. Messenger Photo by Joe Duty
The story begins with Neal Hawks, a Nebraskan often referred to as a prominent businessman and Mark Cuban’s brother-in-law (they married sisters).
Unlike the Dallas Mavericks’ owner, Hawks is reserved and calculated in his public life. He keeps to himself and doesn’t like to do interviews.
The son of Howard and Myrna Hawks said his father was the first in his family to leave the farm, attending college at the University of Nebraska before taking a job with GM in Anderson, Ind.
Howard is now chairman of the board of regents at Nebraska.
After GM, the Hawks patriarch served as president of three subsidiary groups, Northern Natural Resources, Northern Liquid Fuels Group and Northern Plains Natural Gas Co., before founding the energy company Tenaska.
Hawks also attended the University of Nebraska, earning a law degree, and after working for a corporation in Omaha, he began a career in real estate.
He discovered a passion for the game of basketball at Nebraska and joined a traveling basketball team comprised of ex-Huskers who played all over the country for about 10 years.
Though Hawks isn’t one to reveal his exact worth, he humbly admits that he has been fortunate when it comes to his money and success.
He also gained a passion for charity, especially involving children. That passion indirectly brought him to where he is today with six boys under his roof.
Neal Hawks
A single man at the time, Hawks became the legal guardian of Chapman in 2007, and after marrying his wife, Jamie, in 2010, the Hawks’ life changed even more when they received a call from an aquaintance in Flower Mound where they were living at the time.
“One day out of the blue, my wife got a call from a lady that she knew but didn’t know well,” Hawks said. “She told my wife about this young man [LaJohn Williams] who needed help because of his home and school situation. This was about four years ago, and we had him come over and talked to him.
“Jamie and I really liked him, so he moved in with us and went through three years at Flower Mound High and is now at college.”
Soon after, Keenan Holdman came into the fold and found his place as part of the Hawks’ family. Then Caleb Smith followed.
Hawks said that he simply saw opportunities to give these kids a better education and living situation. He said the boys were behind academically, so they decided to help them “catch up” by homeschooling.
“After my wife and I discussed it, we decided that homeschooling was the way to go because we have the ability to have a tutor/teacher work with them 1-on-1 or 1-on-3 and you can focus on the areas that they need help in moreso than an eight-period school schedule where you’re in class with a 30 other people and one teacher for 50 minutes a session,” Hawks explained.
Devonte Patterson was the last boy to join the Hawks family.
“We got a call one day from a gentleman in Wichita, Kan., that I had never spoken to before in my life,” Hawks said. “I didn’t know his name or anything about him. Somehow he had heard that we helped kids.
“I find it interesting that it gets around like that,” he said. “He told us all about Devonte. Devonte’s grandmother had recently died, and she was the glue that held the family together. We had him come down for a weekend, and we loved his infectious personality.”
Though the transition from Patterson’s life in Wichita to his new home with the Hawks wasn’t perfect, they eventually became a tight-knit family unit. When Neal and Jamie had their first biological child, Noah, Patterson’s relationship with his new brother was unbreakable.
“They share a bond that is pretty incredible,” Hawks said. “We’ve been very fortunate to have Devonte come into our lives. Where he was then, and where he has gotten himself to is nothing short of incredible.
“When he moved in with us, he had never played an organized sport. So the Devonte Patterson you see down on the floor of the Alamodome kicking some butt is a long way removed from the kid that moved in with us and had never played basketball almost four years ago. He’s done that himself. He worked and worked at it and put thousands of hours in the gym and weightroom.”
With five young men living and studying under their roof, Hawks wanted the boys to experience the thrill and life lessons learned from organized sports.
He formed the Flower Mound Rebels with other homeschooled kids.
“When we were the eighth-grade Flower Mound Rebels, we had nine or 10 kids,” Hawks said. “It wasn’t just kids that lived in my house. There’s a lot of homeschool teams out there. We had a good time doing it. When we were a freshman team … we probably played about 70 games, some were local and others we had to travel to.
“We’d take our tutor along with us, and that’s the great thing about homeschool is you can take kids all over and they can still take care of their school work,” he said.
As the team traveled, Hawks took the boys to museums, making lifelong memories and increasing the boys’ knowledge and understanding of how the country works.
In 2011, Hawks approached coach Brad Chasteen to coach the Rebels. Chasteen was teaching and coaching at Coppell High School at the time. He was originally skeptical of Hawks’ motives.
“Being a traditional coaching guy, I was a little hesitant,” Chasteen said. “In 2011-12, I worked them out Sunday nights, and I got to see up close and personal what these boys were about.
“It was a unique situation,” he said. “They had a tremendous passion.”
After the 2012 school year, Chasteen retired from Coppell and began coaching the Rebels, traveling all over the globe with Hawks and the boys.
“It was something that I would never have had the chance to do on my own,” Chasteen said. “I got to ‘double-dip’ as they say, being paid to coach the Rebels and also collecting retirement. My kids were out of school by that time so it was the perfect situation for us.”
Being so close to the boys, Chasteen said that they showed all of the characteristics of brothers.
“When you homeschool and live together and play ball together, you’re together more than average brothers,” he said. “If they didn’t care about each other and love each other, they couldn’t make it work.” Chasteen believes the boys not only advanced academically with their studies, but they also advanced at five times the rate of his average pupil.
“There’s no question that the extra work they have done has sped up the learning curve significantly,” he said. “If these kids were under my tutelage in a traditional setting, they would be good players but not where they are now.”
The boys also got advice and coaching from Mavericks legend Michael Finley.
“If I had to pick a guy out of the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex that I would like my kids to mold themselves after, it would probably be Michael Finley,” said Hawks, who met him during his charity work.
Hawks said that after Finley took a front office job with the Mavericks, his ability to work with the boys was limited due to NBA rules regarding employees and high school athletes.
Last year, Neal and Jamie decided that it was time to bring the boys into a public school environment.
Williams was heading to Blinn College and the other four boys were at a point where Hawks felt they could handle their studies on their own.
“My wife and I talked about it and we decided that if we wanted the boys to be successful in college, and we hope that all four of the juniors and LaJohn down at Blinn will complete college, they needed to get back into a setting where they were responsible to eight or 10 people a day,” Hawks said.
Looking for the ideal community, Hawks discovered Bridgeport.
Bridgeport’s size and location were a draw – a small-town feel that was out of the Metroplex, but also close enough to attend Mavericks and Dallas Cowboys games.
With Jamie’s family in Rockwall and Dallas, and Bridgeport being right along the road to to their ranch in Rotan, the location couldn’t have been better.
The Hawks built a home on 15 acres that could house two adults, a nanny/tutor, six young men and a young child.
“I hope everybody noticed that we didn’t come in and rent a house,” Hawks said. “We came in and built a house. We’re here in Bridgeport and we intend to stay in Bridgeport.
“The people have welcomed us with open arms and that’s probably been the best thing about our move. The friends we’ve made and the kids just being fully accepted in the school and the community has been amazing. We all know about the awful stuff going on in Ferguson, Mo., but I want to say that we have not experienced any of that in Bridgeport. The people, community and schools have been great. We love it here.”
Hawks and the boys also had fun with the Bridgeport/Decatur rivalry.
“The kids had some great signs,” Hawks laughingly admited. “We took a lot of them home. ‘Bridgeport Hawks’ and ‘Put in the Bridgeport kids now.’ None of them were mean-spirited and I thought they were pretty funny.”
Hawks is puzzled by the rumor that his boys were somehow recruited by Bridgeport.
“Why would we come to Bridgeport for basketball?” Hawks questioned. “No offense to anyone, but that seems like a pretty unlikely scenario.”
Other rumors regarding the Bulls’ new players centered on Hawks and his relationship with the boys. To some degree, Hawks understands why people would question their unique situation and how it relates to youth sports.
“It makes sense in a couple of ways to me,” he said. “I certainly don’t want to include everybody in Wise County or everybody in Texas, but I think there are a lot of people out there in our society that don’t think that you would actually just help kids to help them. There has to be some kind of other motive, and that’s a sad thing. I like kids. My wife and I like kids. We’re really fortunate to have these boys in our home and have them be part of our family. We’re proud of them and happy that we made the discision to help them.”
He adds: “This doesn’t have anything to do with basketball. LaJohn, as a matter of fact, is about 5’7″ so I’m pretty sure that when we told him he could move in with us and we’d help him, basketball wasn’t at the forefront of our mind. It’s not about that, and I’m sure there are a lot of people who will look at that statement with skepticism. We use athletics as a spring board to success academically and behaviorally.”
When speaking on his role in the boys’ lives, Hawks’ says that it is close to father and son.
“It’s maybe not exactly father/son but it has a lot of father/son components to it,” he said. “We have our fun and our love and our family time. From the background that some of them came from there probably weren’t too many rules and I’ve got a lot more rules than they would like to have.”
Those rules include a 10:30 bed time on school nights and them leaving their cell phones in the downstairs kitchen before heading upstairs for bed.
Hawks also wants them to keep some perspective on life, buying them older, but reliable used cars instead of brand new cars. Hawks says that if they weren’t involved in sports, he would expect his boys to get jobs and contribute by paying for things that he and Jamie currently provide.
When it comes to school work, there is no compromise.
“We don’t care if you play basketball,” he explained. “We expect respect in our house for Jamie and I and for your brothers. We expect you to work hard in school. You’re not going to get anywhere if you don’t work hard at school. Basketball is irrelevant if you don’t work hard at school. I try to stay out of them deciding what they want to do, and what they don’t want to do. When I get involved is when they decide to do something, we’re going to do it to the best of their ability. We’re not going to do anything half way. I believe in that.”
Hawks appears to practice what he preaches, teaming up with John Robinson, owner of JRob’s to establish a workout regimen with the boys.
Robinson said that the beginning of their training had more to do with getting their bodies right and preparing a foundation. Once that was accomplished, their performance on the court skyrocketed. Robinson also focused attention to the mental aspect of their training, throwing new things at them in workouts and forcing them to overcome the mental walls physical fatigue can build. Robinson says that their mental toughness was on full display at the state tournament in the Alamodome.
“You saw the other teams start to slow down or have to substitute,” he said. “But these kids got faster and stronger as the game went on. That’s because they’ve done the work and earned that ability. The training we do is a lot about taking on more once you’re tired.” They also continued their work with Chasteen which the retired Coppell coach hoped would not step on the toes of Alan Green, the Bulls head coach.
“During the regular season there is some shooting and skill work,” he said. “I try to coordinate with Coach Green. Usually the travel team coach isn’t in unison with the high school coach. It’s the opposite. There have been times when the whole program comes and works with me two nights a week and sometimes three.”
He also praised Green for how he molded the team and guided them through the season and the playoffs on the way to a championship.
As much as Chasteen, Finley, Green and Robinson have helped the four boys understand what it takes to be great basketball players, Hawks hopes that he can show them what it takes to be good to others.
“I’ve always tried to include them in our Seats for Soldiers night where we get all of the front row seats for a Mavs game and give them to wounded soldiers from the Brooke Army Medical Center,” he said. “I think the important lesson for them is that they’re fortunate right now. There’s a lot of people in the world that aren’t as fortunate, and whether they need your help financially if you’re able to give it, or they just need a hug or a smile and some encouragement…there’s a lot of people out there that need help and I hope that if they’re in position to do that, they will step up and do that stuff.”
Last Christmas, Hawks got in touch with a woman that had recently moved out of a shelter and into an apartment with her two sons. He and Jamie encouraged their boys to help buy presents for all three and give the small single-mother family a special holiday.
That Christmas was also memorable for the boys because it happened to be right in the middle of their dominant 2014 basketball season.
At one point, however, it seemed that their state championship hopes might be derailed when Devonte Patterson was suddenly suspended from the team. The suspension only fueled the rumor fire that had spread across the area. Hawks was willing to shed a little light on what happened that day.
“I’m not going to go into the details for him because he is still a student,” he said about Patterson. “Devonte made a mistake. He’s 18-years old and he owned up to it. He has satisfied the school’s punishment for it. He’s still satisfying my punishment for it at home. I will say that it wasn’t for the consumption of drugs or alcohol, because that rumor is out there. He also has not failed a drug test or anything like that. I’m actually proud of him for the way he’s handled it. He’s moved forward and, like I said, he’s still satisfying his home requirements but we’re moving on.”
When Patterson returned to the team after fulfilling his suspension, the Bulls continued their trail to the state tournament.
In San Antonio, speculation about the Bulls picked up.
But Hawks says the boys’ ability to play legitimately under UIL rules was proven well before the season.
“There’s different provisions in the UIL bilaws and constitutions for different types of guardianship,” Hawks said. “We’re aware of those rules and we vetted them. We went to the Bridgeport superintendent and athletic director and we’re comfortable with where we’re at on those rules and that we’ve complied with them.
“One thing I’d like to clear up is that we’re referred to as transfers a lot. We’re not transfers, we’re move-ins. We’ve never participated in any UIL contest for any other schools, so we’re not tranfers, we’re move-ins.”
Cuban was also brought up at the tournament and though Mark’s wife Tiffany, and Neal’s wife Jamie are sisters, Neal describes he and Mark’s relationship as a friendship that doesn’t require them to hang out together all of the time. He says that they don’t see each other that often and that Cuban’s involvement with the Bridgeport Bulls is nonexistant.
The real story is that these move-ins came to Bridgeport to be part of a community, and in return, they brought the town its first state championship. Hawks said that it’s the community of Bridgeport that makes the state championship so special.
“They haven’t always had that support,” Hawks said. “They’ve played in a lot of empty gyms. Now, they have this community that they’re entrenched in with all of this support. I think it might actually mean more to them than anybody else, because it means so much to them being accepted by our new friends in Bridgeport.”
Hawks says that the boys have started working out again with Robinson after a two-week hiatus from their more extreme training following the title run. LaJohn is doing well at Blinn.
Keenan Holdman was named to the National Honor Society Wednesday night and Caleb and Ethan are making A’s and B’s. Hawks also says that Patterson is close to being an A/B student. Neal and Jamie continue to work with Big Brother Big Sister, where Hawks says that he’s been for 10-15 years. He is also on the board of an organization called Promising Youth Alliance, or PYA, a collaboration between the Boys and Girls Club, Big Brother Big Sister and Phoenix house that allows them to help underprivaledged children who have also been around drug and alcohol abuse.
The two parents are bracing themselves for the next four kids leaving the nest after next year.
“They will all have opportunities beyond high school,” Chasteen said. “Coach Green and I talk to Divison I college coaches all the time.
“That being said, there will come a day when there’s no more basketball. Hopefully they can transfer what they’ve learned from me, Neal and Coach Green into everyday life.”
Many have speculated a great deal about this team that came together in Bridgeport and took the 4A state title.
Many people have opinions about who these boys are, who Neal Hawks is, and how the town of Bridgeport got their state championship. Many of those opinions had little factual ground to stand on. Perhaps now the stories told about Bridgeport’s state championship can just be about a great team that won it all.