Beach Ball Notebook: Gerald missed at tournament, in Mullins
The Mullins Auctioneers took the Beach Ball Classic court Friday night against Franklin (Ohio) without a familiar face on the bench.
Mark Gerald, who coached the Auctioneers for nearly three decades, died on Sept. 3 after a battle with colon cancer. His achievements and contributions were recognized with a short ceremony before the start of Mullins’ game that included Beach Ball executive director and Myrtle Beach mayor John Rhodes and Gerald’s 28-year-old daughter, Jessica.
Rhodes possessed one of the two inspirational quotes from Gerald on framed tee shirts that will reside near the entrance to the convention center arena throughout the tournament.
It read: “Friday morning, when chemo starts to weaken its hold on me, I’m going to get back up again and coach as hard as I ever have, and along the way I’m going to turn some young boy into a man, I’m going to do what the Lord blessed me to do.”
In addition to leading the members of his basketball teams over the years, Gerald was a father figure to many in the Mullins community.
“To know that so many people cared is pretty big,” said Jessica, an assistant coach for the Mullins girls basketball team. “When I was smaller I couldn’t really understand why he did so much [for other kids], but then as I got older I understood.”
Gerald was close to Felton family, including NBA player Raymond Felton, and his nephew, Mullins sophomore Jalek Felton, is one of the top-ranked sophomores in the country. “He just really changed me from being a little boy into a grown man,” Jalek Felton said. “Just looking up to him and looking at what he did and learning from him meant a lot – seeing what he does for the community and stuff.
“Anything I had going on, I knew I could go to him about it and he’d have an answer for it.”
Gerald impacted Raymond Felton in his youth, and Gerald’s only son, Jarod, who played at South Carolina, remains one of Felton’s closest friends and lives in Dallas, where Felton plays for the Mavericks.
Jimmy Vereen, who was an assistant to Gerald for 15 years and has been a football coach at the school for 34 years, has succeeded Gerald as head coach.
“I’m very much honored to follow Mark, but it’s tough,” Vereen said. “When you’ve got tradition and success, that’s what the Mullins fans are used to.
“… His coaching was a unique style. He was stern, players understood what he was saying and they did it.”
Gerald’s Auctioneers won a state title in 1997 and played for a couple more state championships in recent years, losing to Southside in 2009 and Keenan in 2011.
Gerald’s contributions to Mullins can hardly be measured solely in wins and losses and championship game appearances.
“He had cookouts and a lot of fellowship with the community and his players,” Vereen said. “Coach Gerald wasn’t just a Mullins coach, he was like a county coach. He never turned down a kid if they came over from Marion or Creek Bridge or anywhere. If they said he needed help, that’s what he did. Not just basketball, just trying to get them in school or whatever.”
Green garnering attention
Michael Green is already making a splash.
He isn’t even in high school, either. Yet the eighth-grade Christian Academy of Myrtle Beach guard has been playing better basketball than some high school kids.
Making his first start since suffering an ankle injury early in the season, Green finished with 16 points and four rebounds in the Saints’ 69-60 loss to Carvers Bay on Friday in a local spotlight game prior to the Beach Ball Classic at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center.
“Michael is a good player and he’s still extremely young; he’s only an eighth grader,” Christian Academy coach Darren Gore said. “He’s coming off an ankle injury. I really didn’t want him to play as much as he played tonight but being short-handed, I had to stick him out there. [He’s] not quite 100 percent so I thought that affected his shooting a little bit. He hadn’t played in three weeks now and this morning was the first time he’s shot the basketball so I think that affected his shooting. He’s a better shooter than he showed today but he’ll get going.”
While Green still isn’t playing at full strength, neither have the Saints. Gore admitted he hasn’t had the same starting lineup in a while. Bernard Jones, one of Christian Academy’s top defenders, along with Green, has missed a significant amount of games this year. Yemi Oduwole, who finished with a team-high 17 points Friday, was also making one of his first starts back from injury.
While the first few weeks haven’t gone as Gore planned, he hopes to have his team back at full strength in time for region play.
“I don’t think we’ve had the same starting lineup for the past two months with a lot of key players being out,” Gore said. “We haven’t had our normal rotation but I think we’ll be OK. We’re going to find out what we need to do and what we need to work on. We’re doing some things differently than past years and when region play starts in January, we want to be where we need to be.”
Green has been a part of a few different AAU teams, which have helped him develop as a player. While Green is just an eighth-grader, he said there isn’t any added pressure as he’s been called upon to step up.
“I don’t get nervous because I’ve played on big stages but I think some of my teammates do and I try to pick them up,” he said. “It doesn’t make it any tougher [being young]. The thing that makes it tough is we didn’t have a full team today. We didn’t have our best defender and our best ball handler, so that makes it tougher.”
Green’s name has even made the lists of top players in the country for his class.
“He’s a top 100 prospect,” said Kevin Schneider, vice president and national recruiting coordinator for Big Shots, a Myrtle Beach-based basketball scouting, recruiting and tournament/camp service. “He’s at a young age, but he’s talented and there is potential there.”
Gore said Green has done a great job stepping in and filling holes and expects him to be playing at 100 percent soon.
“He hasn’t even started high school yet and we put him in a pretty big position,” Gore said. “Michael has never really been hurt and this one has been his first [injury], where he’s had to sit out after the season started and miss five or six games. It’s going to take him a little while to get the rust off and get back into the flow but I’m confident he’ll be back in form soon.”
This story was originally published December 26, 2014 at 10:24 PM with the headline "Beach Ball Notebook: Gerald missed at tournament, in Mullins."