Russell Charles realized a greater dream than he dared even hoped for when he was named to the Georgia Tech football staff    by head coach Pepper Rogers.At age 22, Charles became, if not the youngest, certainly one of the country’s youngest fulltime assistants at a major university. Coaching has always been a long- range goal of his. “I talked with Joe Tusa (HISD Athletic Director) when I was …

  In a six and half hour marathon played at Jeppesen Field, Kashmere Gardens Junior Senior High School under the leadership of Coach Henry L. Stevenson claimed the 1965 UIL State Baseball Championship. In game one behind the strong pitching of Larry Dean Washington 13 strikeouts, Kashmere beat Waco Moore 8-3 in seven innings.                   In the middle game Waco Moore sent Bob Degrate to the mound and he responded …

  [Not a valid template]KFAA: How was Coach Drew able to prepare this squad that was loaded with so many good players?   Jarvis:  “Coach Drew gave us the guidance and freedom we needed to be relaxed on the court.  Any player that was open had the green light to shoot. We believed that no team would beat us if we played team ball. Coach Drew’s practices would consist of us …

After winning the national title, many more accolades were bestowed on the 1975 Kashmere Rams team.  Coach Weldon Drew was named ESPN National Coach of the Year.   Karl Godine, the State Championship MVP, and Jarvis Williams were both named to the All-America team.  Karl Godine, Jarvis Williams, Carl Byrd, and Madison Lane were all named to the All-State Team. For Williams and Godine this was a repeat selection, after being …

With the 1974 championship under his belt, it was time for Coach Drew to prepare the 1975 team for the quest for another title. First task was to make up for the loss of guards, Stanton and Reggins, due to graduation. The answer came in the form of Madison Lane and Henry Small.  Henry, an experienced sharpshooter, and Madison, a slick ball handler, along with arguably the state’s best sixth-man …

The confident senior Reggins, a key figure in the victory with 17 points, was right in his previous prediction and therefore bore listening to once again. His latest prophecy was “We’ll be back next year too”… referring to the nine returning players and a junior varsity team that went 28-4 in route to winning the city title. Kashmere would place three players on the All-State Tournament Team: Craig Reggins, Jarvis …

Led by Coach Drew, the Rams dominated Houston high school basketball taking a 27 game win streak into the regional playoffs.  From there, the Rams would beat Forest Brook 100-88, Port Arthur Lincoln 82-77, and in a thriller of a game, Worthing 91-90 taking their win streak to 30 games and overall record to 40-2 entering into Austin for the semi-finals. Because of superior shooting (45% to 39%) and rebounding …

What most fans didn’t know was that some incredible things were happening on the junior varsity squad that year. Under the tutelage of Assistant Coach Ned “Chief” Streety was the emergence of Karl Godine, Craig Reggins, Madison Lane, and Carl Belcher along with James Howard, Steve Mitchell, Floyd Patterson, Lawson Jackson, Edward Miles and Charlie Ross. “Chief” was a strict, no nonsense coach that toughened up those guys.  This would …

In 1975, there were 800 plus high schools in the state of Texas and somewhere in the range of 20,000 high schools across the country. In that group, a small school located in northeast Houston with an enrollment of less than 1800 students, were declared the number one high school basketball team in the entire nation by EA Sports, National Sport News Service and several other publications after winning back …