For the first time since 2008, another coach other than Lawrence Thomas is guiding the Southeast boys basketball program.
When Wayne Hamilton Jr. took the court in the Spartans’ season opener on Nov. 27 at Stephen Decatur Middle School, the 46-year-old first-time head coach was ready to put into practice all he had learned.
“It was a complete and total honor to be in this position,” Hamilton said. “I’ve worked a long time to be able to get in this position, and I’m just blessed and honored to be in this position to be mentioned with the name of somebody like L.T. (Thomas).”
In terms of wins and losses, things haven’t gone well for the 0-4 Spartans, but Hamilton is in it for the long haul, and he said the team will get better throughout the season.
“We’ve got some young talent on the team, and they got to learn the system and what we want to be trying to do,” Hamilton said. “Two weeks is a little quick, so it’s going to be a process for us this year.”
Thomas said he had hoped Hamilton would be the one to succeed him at Southeast.
“I’m about loyalty and Wayne’s been with me for 12 years,” Thomas said. “If I’m not respectful of everything that he’s given me to the point where I can’t support him in total for the position of head basketball coach at this school where I know he’s grinded just as much as me, it’s a no brainer.”
Hamilton and Thomas aren’t the only ones who have faith. Lanphier coach Blake Turner, who worked with Hamilton when the two were assistants under then-Lanphier coach Chuck Shanklin, said Southeast made a great hire to replace L.T.
“They’re going through some growing pains early, but I think he’s doing the right thing, playing a bunch of young guys that can buy into his system and be able to come out and contribute,” Turner said. “I know him, I know that he’s not going to say a lot, he’s not going to complain a lot, he’s just going to put his head down and watch film, and get to work and keep working.
“In the conversations that I’ve had with him, that’s what it sounds like he’s been doing and I’m confident that that’s what he’ll do, and he’ll get the program where it needs to be.”
Hamilton is a social studies teacher at Jefferson Middle School, and that will serve him well also, Turner and Thomas said.
“He teaches. He’s a good coach. He likes the game,” Thomas said. “He likes teaching the game. He’s very positive. P.J. (Hamilton’s nickname), his coaching style, he charts in every column. He’s very competitive. He’s smart. He’s got all the intangibles that it takes to be successful in coaching. Regardless if we’re talking basketball. He’s great. He’s patient. He’s got a lot of traits that I wish I had.”
Turner added, “I think that P.J. is a laid-back, no-nonsense kind of guy. He’s quiet, but he’s one of those guys where you can’t mistake his kindness for weakness.
“He’s a teacher, so he’s really invested in kids, he does a good job teaching, teaching basketball to kids, teaching the offense, teaching the defense, and I just think that once he gets a class of kids to come through there that learn his terminology, learn the way that he wants them to play and learn his system, I think that he’ll be good.”
Southeast opened the Decatur Turkey Tournament with a 67-37 loss to Decatur MacArthur, then dropped a 69-33 decision to another Central State Eight Conference member, Sacred Heart-Griffin. In the seventh-place game, Southeast fell to O’Fallon, 71-39. The Spartans were off until a 52-31 loss to Rochester in the CS8-opening Showcase Saturday at the Bank of Springfield Center on Saturday.
“It’s a lot of things that are correctable,” Hamilton said. “We’ve just got to put in the effort and look at the film and get back to the drawing board.”
Two recent Southeast alumni are on the bench helping Hamilton: 2019 graduate Anthony Fairlee, The State Journal-Register’s Large School Boys Basketball Player of the Year in 2018, and Trevyon Williams, a 2017 Southeast graduate.
Despite their youth, Hamilton praised their maturity and said they were big assets to the program.
“I don’t see these guys as kids (or) I wouldn’t have hired them,” Hamilton said. “These guys, when I went through the hiring process, I saw the hunger that they have. I saw the passion that they have for our school and our team, because they’ve been through the fire and everything like that.
“I surprisingly saw some maturity from them as talking to them and being around them. Anthony has a young son right now, and he’s being a wonderful, tremendous father. These guys have matured, and they’re going to continue to mature, and they’re going to learn how to be good coaches.”
What’s Hamilton’s biggest takeaway from the start of the season?
“We’ve just got to get better,” he said.
Contact Ryan Mahan: 788-1546, ryan.mahan@sj-r.com, Twitter.com/RyanMahanSJR.
