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| Adam Spaw, a member of the 1997 graduating class of Bishop Brossart High School, and full time Sports Editor of the Kentucky Kernel, the official on-campus newspaper of the University of Kentucky, was supposed to be on assignment in Cleveland with the UK Wildcats who were doing battle in the NCAA Basketball Tournament. However, he begged off of the assignment when Brossart qualified for the State Tournament and was in attendance when the Mustangs took out Graves County, motivating him to write an article on his thoughts of our accomplishment. Adam is one of "my boys," a former player who I coached his freshman year and watched play four years of ball at Brossart. |
| March 22, 2000 Brossart Delivers Dream By Adam Spaw (Brossart Class of 1997) - SportsDaily Editor, The Kentucky Kernel |
| Segment Number Thirteen |
| Small schools put the sugar in the Sweet Sixteen. Annually, Kentucky's boy's state basketball tournament is a conglomeration of institutions large enough to house swimming pools, sell soft serve at lunch and put a football team on the field in August. In general, your participants typically include a couple of expeditious team from Louisville, a few colossal consolidatated county squads, another city team with a guy who's got a mean windmill. Such commonalities are Nutrasweet in the Sixteen stew. Then there's this year. There's Bishop Brossart. Enrollment: tiny. No quarterbacks, of course. It took the innocuous little high school nicked Mustangs to remind observers that grandiose plans are still attained. Beasts of burden are overcome. Dave Schabell was courtside for Brossart's first-ever trip to the Boys' State Basketball tournament last weekend in Rupp Arena. Schabell assumed a similar courtly position in 1964, when his Mustangs lost to St. Rita's School For The Deaf. Rumor has it that affair wasn't close. Confirmation suits gossip. "Oh yeah, I rode the bus home that night with the team," said Schabell, who graduated from Brossart in 1965. That year, the team went 8-22 -by most accounts, a successful season. It isn't hard to find winless Brossart campaigns. Just open the school's media guide. Or talk to a patron. Mustang hoopla and plain awful were synonymous for years. A March trip to Rupp Arena in the fold? "Never ever," Schabell said of the Catholic school in northern Kentucky. "I always though it was for somebody else." And so did everyone else with a sane mind. Incidently,Willie Schlarman must have crossed paths with dementia sometime close to June of 1997, when he took over as coach of Brossart's passable basketball program. "The best laid plans of mice, men and mustangs often go awry," Schabell would say to his players in his Brossart coaching days. Perhaps just subtle words to sooth hard losses. Schlarman had other things in mind. "When Willie came he said it's no longer O.K. to come close and lose," Schabell said. "He said 'we're going to win. And if you believe in me, and in yourselves, great things will happen.'" In his first year as coach, Schlarman won the faith by taking Brossart one game away from a state tourney berth. The Mustangs had never been as far. In this, his third season, Schlarman's team won its last six games and found itself playing Graves County on the home floor of the Kentucky Wildcats. Brossart won that one, too. "We just went above Cloud Nine," Schlarman said after the win. "It's just a dream to play on that floor," said senior Jeff Clark. For years, a memorable Brossart season was contingent on one factor - a victory over ample Campbell County, Brossart's neighboring rivals. (Up until 1986, the microcosm-Mustangs used Campbell County's gym for their home games). Canning the Camels would vanquish the vagaries of a season ransacked by losses. But that rarely happened. It did once, sometime in the late 1970s, when the 'Stangs squeaked a late-season stunner. The Camel coach was fired. "Brossart will never beat Campbell County," a Camel patron named William was overheard saying in the early 1990s, this, two decades removed from Brossart's last win over the county. En route to their regional championship, Brossart defeated the Camels for the District crown. Last week, William received a postcard in the mail. It read: Brossart 47, Graves County 40. Wish you were here. And of course, in eat-crow-fashion, it reiterated that infamous early '90s quote. Brossart's dream season ended when the team lost a close one to Russellville in the quarterfinals. Russellville had a 6'10" junior. Nobody for Brossart broke 6'2". As Schlarman and his players walked off the floor, they received a standing ovation. On blue sidelines in Lexington, Brossart players saw the inconceivable. Up in the crowd, for the anonymous author of the postcard, the view was even better. |
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| Spaw compares Brossart's unlikely win in the State Tournament to the movie Hoosiers where Norman Dale (played by Gene Hackman) led a small school to the Indiana state tournament in the 1986 film. |
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| Front Row: L-R Michael Eten, Nick Ziegler, Jeff Clark, Scott Ruth, Justin Seiter, David Enzweiler, Jon Lloyd, Andy Kremer Back Row: Asst Coach Bill Klopp, Head Coach Willie Schlarman, Chris Ryan, Brandon Seiter, Rob Luschek, Paul Rhoden, Chad Bertke, Asst Coach Bob Rowe, Freshmen Coach Jamie Schoulties, Trainer Chris Holtz |
| THE 1999-2000 MIRACLE MILLENNIUM MUSTANGS |
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