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Call from the Bullpen by David Maull

The Bullpen | Sussex Central | Sports Front Page

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Slade Has Knights on Right Track
From the Jan. 21, 1999 TV Times

The necktie was long gone, the collar was unbuttoned and the sweat-stained dress shirt was untucked.

Leaning against a post in the Sussex Central locker room, Tim Slade bore the look of a man who had been run through an emotional ringer.

Quietly, he ushered a reporter into the coach's office and closed the door. He then spoke candidly about that evening's 49-42 loss to Lake Forest and his first 11 games as Sussex Central's boys varsity basketball coach.

"I'm still confident in this team. I haven't felt this down since probably our fourth loss of the season to Polytech," Slade said. "Ever since then, I've been very happy with my team. Every game we've played we've been in and played really hard."

On this night, Central trailed by 14 points in the second quarter before rallying to tie the score with four minutes left in the game. The Golden Knights fell flat down the stretch, however, squandering a chance to knock off the seventh-ranked team in the state.

The loss dropped Central to 2-6 in the Henlopen Conference and 4-7 overall and added another chapter to a roller-coaster season.

Central lost its first four games of the season and suffered a 33-point drubbing at the hands of St. John Neumann at Slam Dunk to the Beach but has also notched impressive victories over Cape Henlopen, Milford, Salesianum and Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore.

The Knights are a young team that has made youthful mistakes. Players have not yet gelled as a unit and their coach is struggling to find the right combination on the court.

Slade expected the going to be rough early in the season, but that hasn't made the losing any easier to take.

"This is really tough when you have so much talent," he said. "I have all these guys who can play and it's tough wondering who's ready to step up.

"I've still got a lot to learn. Some coaches are very good at reading when a player is actually ready. Myself, I'm learning. As far as overall team effort, you need to find the team that actually gels the best together. I'm having a tough time figuring that out."

Slade is a Georgetown native who played at Sussex Central from 1987-1989 and was a member of the 1988 team that advanced to the state finals. He was also Central's junior varsity basbasketball coach under Vic Hrebien from 1995-97.

While Slade had some coaching experience, he soon discovered the varsity level was a whole different ballgame.

"I didn't realize how tough it was until I actually got into it," he said. "I used to watch Hrebien and he told me it was really, really tough.

"I thought I had an advantage by coming in. Me being a player myself and me having the aggressive nature to just want to win, I thought I could instill it those guys and few of them I have. But a few of them (are still learning)."

Making Slade's job more difficult is a demanding fan base that is prepared to run even the most successful coaches out of town at the first sign of trouble.

Central has gone through football coaches like most people go through Kleenex and Hrebien was let go after last season despite leading the Knights to their best record since 1993.

Slade is aware of those pressures and hopes fans will be patient while this team finds itself. The belief of this columnist is that the Knights will be fine. Despite their early struggles, they should finish around the .500 mark mark and receive a state tournament berth.

Central is in the midst of a two-week stretch of winnable games and could soon gain a measure of confidence. The Knights are capable of knocking off any team in the conference on any given night, meaning there may be some surprises late in the season.

More importantly, most of the team's impact players will return next year, making for a bright future.

Slade is learning right along with his players and will eventually turn Sussex Central into a winner, perhaps as early as this season.

Despite what those in the bleachers may think, coaching is a tough job. For a young man who is in his first year as a varsity coach, who is trying to mold a group of inexperienced youngsters into a well-oiled machine and who saw Central's best player, Brian Polk, transfer to Sussex Tech in the offseason, Slade is doing just fine.