Rogers High Pirates’ hard work, trust pay off on and off the court

Midway through practice for the biggest game of their lives, the Rogers High School basketball players were going through the motions and the emotions, most of them unhealthy.

Heads were hanging with every missed shot, every bad pass – every failure – until coach Joel Soter seized the moment to deliver a Presidents Day lesson on basketball as a metaphor for life.

“Don’t ever drop your head,” Soter commanded.

“Is that how you respond to failure?” he asked of kids whose response mechanism has often been more of the same.

Until this season.

The Pirates are 14-7 and finished third in the Greater Spokane League. Last weekend they won a district title, the first anyone can remember.

Victories don’t come easily at Rogers, which hasn’t enjoyed a winning season since 1998. The Pirates made an unlikely run to the state 3A tournament in 2009, but haven’t won more than seven GSL games since – until this season.

“We made history,” said senior guard Isaiah Wynecoop, who wants to make more.

“I want to go to college,” he said.

Great expectations

Wynecoop and the Pirates also want to go to state. A win at home tonight against Kennewick will put them a game away from their expectation, a word that gets used a lot in the Rogers gym.

The Pirates don’t speak of goals, they talk of expectations – in the home, in the classroom. The wins will follow, believes Soter, a clean-cut 36-year-old who grew up on the South Hill.

Nine years ago he landed at Rogers, coaching freshman and junior varsity ball for six years while also teaching at Bancroft School, an alternative school in north Spokane.

In 2011, he left to take the head coaching job at Cheney, but was pulled back to Hillyard, a predominantly low-income neighborhood in northeast Spokane.

“This is one of those places where once you’re here, it kind of overtakes you,” said Soter, whose wife also teaches at Rogers.

“There’s something about working with these kids, it was hard to get away … there always was a piece of me here,” said Soter, who taught at Ferris last year even as he took the basketball reins at Rogers.

It was a tough balancing act last season. Soter lost his first seven games, along with star inside player Melik Hampton to a broken hand. Then he lost junior guard Asante Fields, who quit in midseason “because we didn’t get along,” Soter said.

The Pirates managed to win six of their last 10 games, finishing 6-15. More importantly, the players bought into Soter’s message. Along with assistants Karim Scott, Keith Hoffman and Donnell Calhoun, he laid a foundation of trust and accountability that “had nothing to do with basketball,” Soter said.

“Winning is great … but hard work doesn’t always pay off right away,” Soter said.

Back from the brink

Asante Fields is a stereotype-busting, dreadlocked child of a broken home who uses near-perfect English to describe an imperfect world.

“Not having a father puts a lot of stress in your life,” said Fields, whose father has been in jail for most of Asante’s life.

Most of Soter’s players come from solid family backgrounds, but for Fields and senior guard Wynecoop, their coach is the first father figure they’ve known.

“So here’s this guy yelling at them, and it isn’t easy for them, especially a guy who’s not related,” said Soter, who also teaches world history and works as an intervention teacher at Rogers.

Said Fields: “It’s just so difficult, because you don’t know all the obstacles that are still out there, that you still have to overcome.”

One obstacle was his own pride, which he swallowed when he asked Soter if he could come back for summer ball.

“I told him, ‘You prove to me and to your teammates that you’re not going to quit on them,’ ” Soter said.

Fields didn’t play a minute that summer, but regained his teammates’ trust. “Ultimately, he learned a good lesson,” said his mother, Sheree Turner.

Said Fields, “With coach being the father figure, it’s made a huge impact on our lives.”

A foundation of winning

Winning basketball is built on trust, that the pass will come at the right time and place, that the pick will be set.

Easy enough, “Unless you haven’t had anybody in your life where you can trust or rely on,” Fields said. “But we’ve known each other since middle school – the trust is there.”

Then the Pirates set out to make believers outside of Hillyard. Even with a savvy, senior-dominated lineup, Rogers was picked by rival coaches to finish only eighth in the 10-team GSL. Instead, the Pirates won nine of their first 11 games and held sole possession of first place halfway through the season.

The talent is undeniable. Hampton, a senior forward, is averaging better than 12 points and 10 rebounds a game, and senior guard Robert Rucker scores 13.5 points a game and is “our best defender,” Soter said.

Junior K.J. Hassett is the top scorer at 13.7 points a game, while 5-foot-8 junior Tate Dunbar – who didn’t even start on the JV squad last year – has been another key contributor.

So has Fields, who’s provided a spark off the bench and made the difference in several games, Soter said.

After a rough patch in midseason that saw them lose four of six games, the Pirates bounced back by winning three of their last four, including a 75-55 win over Shadle Park to win district.

“That was special,” Hampton said. “We’ve been talking about this since we came in as freshmen, and to achieve these goals – wow!”

After the final buzzer

“They’ve done a ton for this school,” Rogers Principal Lori Wyborney said of the basketball team. “Anytime you win in athletics, it rubs off on everything else.”

She added, “The greatest thing is that our alumni are coming back in droves.”

Soon these players will join them, carrying dreams beyond basketball. Soter hopes he’s helped those dreams along.

“We’re creating a culture,” Soter said. “I tell them, ‘This is just a little glimpse of your life, but the lessons you learn on this basketball floor, they stay with you forever.’ ”

After practice, Soter grills the players on whether they’re up to date on their homework. If not, “there will be consequences,” he promises his players, who gaze knowingly at the floor; they’ve faced those consequences before.

“He doesn’t want us to fall short of standards that he knows we can get to,” Rucker said.