Throughout the past season, much like the years before it, the WHS basketball teams have proven the edge that makes their teams unique. These teams work fluidly together to enhance the team as a whole and the individual teammates. At strenuous practices, long bus rides, and thrilling tournaments and games, the different basketball teams- Varsity, Junior Varsity, and Freshman- train, compete, and encourage one another together.

Grade level or age group does not affect this team’s ability to be together as one. The players don’t look for what makes them different from each other; instead, they only look for the strength that could help win games. Upperclassmen encourage underclassmen to make their weaknesses become a strength in order to be better basketball players.

“I feel like I’m only getting better when I play with or against upperclassman,” sophomore Jordan Wheeler said. “I do not think there is any divide in the grades. Everybody has a different skill set at different ages.”

From Freshman year on, the players learn to practice with one another, learning to both enhance their athletic capability and convival interactions.

“I’ve learned respect from the upperclassmen,” freshman Braden Carter said. “I look up to them and want to play like them.”

Basketball was first invented by a Physical Education teacher as a sport less prone to injury, but since then the game has been transformed into an American and global sports phenomena. However, this game is also an integral part of school athletics, and continues to adapt as the atheltic scene changes.

“Usually high school sports follow what is going on at the pro levels. I played basketball at Robert E. Lee High School in Midland. I graduated in 2004, so the game has changed some since then,” boys basketball Coach Coffman said. “Basketball is a game that I love. I believe you can teach life lessons to young kids through this sport. These life lessons can help change a person’s life for the better.”

But as this season draws to a close, the basketball players look for what’s next as the underclassmen transition into the team leaders and the seniors reflect on their own time in the WHS basketball program.

“My legacy to the athletic department would be no matter the circumstance play with 100% effort every time. When you step on the court that is your time to play. Those 32 minutes on the court is your time to show all the hard work you have put in at practice… Coaches and fans will always admire that,” Smith said.

As the saying goes, the WHS basketball players are once a Roo and always a Roo. United as one, working together, giving it all (with the help from the Roo fans cheering them on), and the leadership that encourages them to be the best together as a  team is their path to true success. Winning or not, the WHS boys basketball teams stick together.

“All the parents and kids in Weatherford come to support us and it makes me want to play better,” Carter said, while Coffman added, “Weatherford is one of the few 6A schools that only have one high school in town. So a lot of our kids have been Kangaroos their entire lives. This makes our program more of a family type atmosphere.”