BHS alum taking team to state title game this weekend

Published 8:46 am Thursday, March 7, 2019

The Georgia High School Association (GHSA) basketball state championship games are this week in Macon. Although no local teams are competing, one contender’s coach has very strong ties to the Baldwin County community. 

Baldwin High School alum James Hartry (Class of ’76) and his Tucker High School Tigers are playing for the Class 6A title at 3 p.m. Saturday against Tri-Cities High School. The Tigers are seeking their second state championship under Hartry’s watch, the first having come back in 2007. Tucker is 28-4 this season and has already added to the school’s trophy case by winning the Region 4-6A championship.

After graduating from Baldwin High, Hartry played college basketball at Clark College in Atlanta (now Clark Atlanta University). Once he finished up his career there he worked for the Georgia Department of Corrections for a few years before he broke into the education and coaching realm.

“My first high school coaching job was as the junior varsity girls basketball coach at Avondale High School,” Hartry told The Union-Recorder in a Wednesday phone interview. “I was there for about two years before a great, great friend of mine that I admire to this day named Carter Wilson — he was the athletic director at Decatur High School for years — asked me if I’d come to Tucker High School to be his assistant coach.”

Hartry worked under Wilson for three years, one of which saw the Tigers reach the state championship game where they fell to an undefeated Westlake team. The Baldwin County native took over the program after those three seasons and has been at Tucker’s helm for 19 years now, accumulating a 380-170 record (a .691 win percentage) and one state title along the way. 

Hartry hopes to add a second state championship to his resumé this weekend, and he admits this one carries different feelings from the first.

“This one here feels a little better and a little different from the first one because in that first one our team was just so loaded,” he said. “I didn’t know it at the time, but I had a future pro that was running the team. MarShon (Brooks) just dominated. This year’s bunch has just come together and they play so hard and determined.”

Brooks went on to play college ball at Providence College in Rhode Island where he broke records and earned national honors in his later years. He was taken by the Boston Celtics in the 2011 NBA Draft and has played for a handful of other NBA teams since. Brooks is currently playing professionally in the Chinese Basketball Association.

This season’s Tucker Tigers do not have a MarShon Brooks on the roster, but what it does have is a will to win.

“This team has a little chip on its shoulder because I lost my best player at the beginning of the year,” said Hartry. “He went on to go to Grayson High School, and everyone said we were going to be dead in the water. These guys came together, and now we’re sitting at 28-4 getting ready to play for a state championship.”

Grayson, meanwhile, was knocked out in the second round of the Class 7A state playoffs, but Hartry harbors no ill will toward his former player, saying parents are the main ones responsible for kids transferring. 

“We still have to love them,” the veteran head coach said. “We can’t worry about the mistakes they make. We still have to pick them up and love them because James Hartry has made a lot of mistakes and people kept loving me and kept giving me opportunities.”

Hartry credits James Lunsford, his high school coach when he was at Baldwin and current GMC Prep boys basketball coach, as one of the main reasons he went into coaching. Hartry actually drove down to Milledgeville earlier this school year to attend a Baldwin County Board of Education meeting where he and others urged the board to rename the BHS gymnasium in Lunsford’s honor. 

“Coach Lunsford is my mentor,” Hartry said. “One of my biggest dreams, when I was in college, was to come back and work with Coach Lunsford. He’s always been there for me, and we’ve stayed in contact over the years. I always called him my second dad because he was like a father figure for me.”

As anyone would expect entering a state championship game, the challenge that awaits Hartry’s Tucker Tigers is a tough one. The Bulldogs of Tri-Cities High School located in East Point are 25-6 this season and won their respective region championship as well.

“They are mighty, mighty tough,” said Hartry. “The No. 1 thing is they’ve got a great coaching staff. The coaches over there are phenomenal. They also have three good little guards that can really, really play. It’s going to be a challenge for us, but I think we’re up for the challenge.”

Tucker and Tri-Cities are scheduled to square off for the 6A title at 3 p.m. inside the Macon Coliseum, the site of all the GHSA basketball state championship games, and tickets are $15.

Hartry is a few years away from retirement and hopes he can get at least one more championship before calling it a career.

“I’m on my down years. I’m about ready to retire. This is a great position to be in when you’re getting ready to go out.”