CORRESPONDENCE
INTERFAITH
EDUCATION
INVESTIGATION LEADS TO HIGH SCHOOL ASSISTANT HEADMASTER, COACH, ATHLETIC DIRECTOR, AND POLITICAL SCIENCE POSITIONS.
NEW YORK TIMES BRANDAN QUINN
The search for a high school basketball all-time scorer that ...
The Lowcountry basketball team was coached by a man named Howie Comen, a local private eye whom McConnell originally enlisted to investigate what he suspected was possible dope smoking behind the school. Comen didn’t uncover narcotics, but did discover a student body with nothing to do after classes. Comen told McConnell that the kids needed to play sports. McConnell responded by hiring Comen as the school’s athletic director, basketball coach and political science teacher. That’s how the Lowcountry Wildcats were born.
“I didn’t exactly know much,” says Comen, whose only prior basketball experience, he explains, was playing in a synagogue league as a kid. “We were pretty dismal, to be honest.” The 1985-86 season was tough. A 1-9 record. In a school with about 120 students from kindergarten through 12th grade, Comen didn’t have enough young men to field a high school boys team or enough young women to field a girls team. So Lowcountry was one of only a handful of high schools in the country with a co-ed varsity basketball team. The lack of a home gym was arguably a larger issue. This was the program Finell White, straight from Harlem, walked into in the fall of 1986. From a distance, at 5 feet 11, he looked like any other kid. Up close, he looked like a man. Sensible mustache. Shoulders like hubcaps. Mellow eyes that had seen some things. Playing a schedule of small, rural, almost exclusively White private schools, the 17-year-old was immediately, and comically, the greatest player the South Carolina Independent School Association (SCISA) had ever seen. He averaged 34.7 points per game in his first season, leading Lowcountry to a 9-5 record. His grade level wasn’t totally clear, but no one seemed to mind. “He was phenomenal,” Comen says. “But the best part was that he didn’t come off like a badass. He wasn’t Mr. Basketball. He had this demeanor that everyone was drawn to. I think he appreciated getting to be a kid.” Comen stepped aside after the 1986-87 season, handing the Lowcountry team over to assistant coach Ronnie Gadsden. He, in turn, set out to improve the Wildcats’ schedule and spread word of the team’s star. The 1987-88 season began with Finell scoring 50 in the opener against St. John’s, 59 against St. Stephen, 60 against Lord Berkeley. The joke among SCISA officials was that Finell averaged 12 steals a game, but eight were from his teammates.
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MIDDLE SCHOO:STUDENT GUNS DOWN FELLOW STTDENT. CHARLESTON CONGRESS OF RELIGIONS ACTS
CHARLESTON POST AND COURIER=============================================================================================
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