From today's Times and News-Star
That
two childhood friends and teammates from North Louisiana would have ended up
coaching against each other for the men’s championship in basketball’s Final
Four wasn’t that far out of reach this month.
It
wasn’t in THE Final Four: the NCAA’s “March Madness” concludes with its title
game tomorrow night in Indianapolis. Although someday, maybe Kyle Blankenship
and Matt Cross, each barely 30 years old, will end up either coaching against
or with each other on the college sport’s biggest stage; athletics throws
people into all sorts of unrehearsed circumstances.
This
“other” Final Four, the NAIA’s Division I 32-team national championship
tournament, ended nearly two weeks ago in Kansas City. Blankenship’s LSUS team –
he led the Pilots to a Final Four appearance two years ago -- made the
tournament in a rebuilding year and lost in the first round. Cross’s Talladega
(Ala.) squad won a two-point game with a basket late in the quarterfinals, then
lost by 10 in the semifinals to eventual national champion Dalton (Ga.) State.
If Talladega hadn’t lost its starting center to an ankle injury in that
quarterfinal game, who knows?
“You’ve
got to get some breaks to win it all, and it didn’t happen; but it was still a
great experience,” said Shreveport’s Robert Cross, Matt’s dad. “Even before we
got to Kansas City we were hoping, since Matt and Kyle were in different
brackets, they might meet up in the championship. On the other hand, that would
have been a tough one for them. And for us.”
The
“we” and the “us” are Matt’s parents, June and Robert Cross, and Kyle’s
parents, Vicki and Rex Blankenship. The couples’ affection for each other grew
as they raised their children in Shreveport, including boyhood friends Matt and
Kyle.
“Naturally
June and I love basketball and we’ve always supported Matt’s career, but we
love Kyle too, and his parents,” Robert said.
Rex
was pastor of Springs of Grace Baptist Church when the boys were in grade
school. Matt and Kyle and their families went to church together and the boys
played together and went to school together. Robert even coached them in church
league basketball and coached Matt in pre-high school football.
Coaching
runs in the Blankenship family too; Rex’s brother Bill, Kyle’s uncle, was most
recently the head football coach at the University of Tulsa, where Kyle was a
basketball team captain after an all-star high school career at C.E. Byrd.
“Those
boys always loved sports,” Robert said. “We were always at a game, seems like.
I think it’s safe to say that both families are pretty much sports-oriented.”
Matt
played high school football at Northwood but “hoops was his true love,” his dad
said. “He studied it, loved it…His dream was to be a coach. And he has been
since he was became maybe the youngest head coach in the nation back when he
was 23.”
The
parents of the two coaches got to spend time together inside and outside the
Kansas City Convention Center at the NAIA tournament; the coaches and boyhood
friends got to spend time together on the court. After the Pilots’ tournament
loss, “Matt had Kyle at practice helping his guys the day before the
semifinals,” Robert said. “Matt put Kyle to work. He called him and Kyle said
he’d help any way he could. That’s what friends are for.
“I
don’t want to sound like too proud of a father, but they’re good boys,” Robert
said. “Rex and I are both kind of old-school parents. We come from Christian
families who believe in treating people right and trying to do the right thing.
We’ve taught these boys that. They work hard, and they make sure their players
do the same thing. Any coach at this level wants to get to Division I; they’ve
done well and one day, as young as they are, they’ll make it. They keep winning
and taking care of their business, they’ll get there. I know this for sure:
they’ll be pulling for each other.”
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