Oak Mountain’s Chris Love coaches boys’ North All-Star team
This spring, a state committee of basketball coaches joined together to decide who would coach this year’s North-South All-Star basketball game in Montgomery.
Vestavia Hills Coach George Hatchett chose Oak Mountain’s Chris Love to coach the North team.
“It was great news. I was very honored and humbled when Coach Hatchett first called me," Love said. "He contacted me in April and I wasn’t sure if he was serious at first. He was very complimentary of our program.”
At Oak Mountain High, Love served as an assistant coach for 10 years before assuming his role of head coach, which he has held for seven years. And when Hatchett reached out to him, Love said he felt that a level of respect was shown for the high school’s growing program.
“We have a great group of coaches here, and our players do everything we ask them to do to put us in a position to be successful on a day in, day out basis. The honor [of coaching the all-star team] is representative of Oak Mountain basketball, not Chris Love,” he said.
Both the North and South all-star teams had 15 players on the rosters, which were made up of the best rising seniors in the state. The game was played at Alabama State University’s Dunn-Oliver Acadome on July 22.
The North, which was also coached by Brian Pounders of Deshler High School, outscored the South 36-35 in the final two quarters but couldn’t retake the lead, falling 72-65.
Prior to Wednesday’s victory, the South’s last win was an 85-76 triumph in 2002.
According to Love, this game was about pride.
“We wanted to prove that the best basketball was played up north,” he said.
The North squad didn’t have a lot of time to practice before the game, Love said.
“We wanted to execute set plays but also let the kids have fun and show their talents. We wanted to make sure we were playing disciplined basketball,” said Love. "It was a close game the whole way, with two teams who were competing and playing the right way.”
The North all-star squad played without Josh Langford of Madison Academy, the ASWA Class 3A player of the year. But it had plenty of other stars.
“We got beat by the South team, and we would’ve liked to win, obviously. But it was a great experience,” Love said. “It was good to build relationships with the players. We had kids from big schools and some from small schools.”
Love said that the game brought more than 30 college coaches and scouts to see talented players such as Justin Hopkins of J.O. Johnson, Tracey Burnett of Lee-Huntsville, Triston Chambers of Cold Springs and Javien Williams of Woodlawn.
“Several players on our team were given offers and hadn’t committed yet," Love said. "So recruiting was going on, as most of the players had some [collegiate] offers.”
The boys’ basketball all-star game is part of a coaches’ convention that involves multiple all-star games for the different high school sports. Throughout the week, baseball, softball and volleyball played their games, while the all-star football game was played during the previous week.
“Most of the teams come down [to Montgomery] for a day, practice, and then play,” Love said.