COLUMN: Latta's lost, Mullins gain with basketball camp

MULLINS -- Last Thursday I went over to watch a little bit of the activities at Raymond Felton’s Basketball Camp at Mullins High School. This is the fifth year that the camp has been in existence and all of them having been held at Mullins High School.

I think that some of you may have wondered out loud and to yourselves as to why Felton, a Latta grad, would have his camp in some place other than Latta? There in belies the problem that I would like to address in this column.

Without getting into much detail or blaming any one party for the obvious distance that exist between the Former Mr. Basketball Of South Carolina and Latta, you would have to go back in time a bit. It has been said that an incident occurred sometime around the time Felton was a rising Jr., which effectively ended his football career. You see Raymond was the starting quarterback for Latta his sophomore year. He had rose in the ranks of the basketball recruiters and was fast becoming a hot prospect. So much so that he played a lot that summer on the AAU circuit. It was said that after one of those weekends of AAU ball he was in the Latta gym shooting the ball and was approached by a high-ranking official who was said to make him leave the gym.

At the time Latta had decided that they would go hog wild into football. Raymond was planning to play football his junior year and would have started at quarterback but, it is said that he no longer wanted to play football and would concentrate exclusively on basketball. To me the first sign of the problem came when I was interviewing the football coach for a story I was doing for Billy Baker in the High School Sports Report. I asked about Raymond and if he was going to play football and he said to me that he needs to play football. Then he uttered these immortal words. “6’1” guards are a dime a dozen and that Raymond will never make it to the NBA.“ I knew then that this guy was clueless and that Latta’s hopes to be successful in football were going to be severely challenged because of him.

Anyway as fate would have it, Felton played football no more but did go on to lead Latta to back-to-back Class A state basketball championships. He also became a statewide phenom as he changed the whole culture of hoops in the state.

The McDonald’s people took notice and invited him to play in their annual showcase all-american game. You would think that with the titles and the national accolades it would change things between Felton and Latta. If anything I think it got worse. At that point Latta head basketball coach, Steven Smith appeared to become a target. From what I heard, from people who should know, Smith was faced with threats of removal from his job as head basketball coach. He was also a teacher there at the time but it was his position as coach that was being put into question even though he built the program from the ground up.

Smith coached every level of basketball from the feeder programs to the varsity. For a stretch he was coaching the “B” team, junior varsity and varsity. I know this to be a fact because I saw him do it all in one day at Terrell’s Bay. So Latta wins the trophies and Felton was showered with much glory, and the Vikings went on to great success. They even shocked the world nationally when they upset Damatha in the Beach Ball Classic. It seemed the more success the team had the more flack the coach and the player had to deal with. So Raymond graduates and heads off to play for the Tarheels. Smith was fired as coach and he subsequently went to work in Mullins.

Not long afterwards, Latta built a beautiful gym, due in part to the success of the basketball team. You see Felton generated a ton of money during those two seasons. He had gotten too big for normal size venues so his playoff games were played in places that could hold a maximum amount of patrons.

Latta decided to retire Felton’s number. A year or so after he graduated and went on to UNC, the school had a big event for him in front of a packed gym. On the surface it had all the trappings of a harmonious relationship from a community that was greatful for all that the team and Felton and Smith had done for it.

The sad thing was that even on that night, the hatred and venom was right there to be seen. I felt it was a bit odd that if you looked on the program of events for the ceremony, Smith’s name was nowhere to be found. It was like he was not a part of all that had happened. He was simply excluded. Many of the people in the gym were puzzled like I was. I said to my son, how could he, the coach who led the
team to this success, be excluded. At the time my son was 12 or 13 years old. He said, “Yeah dad that is strange.”

Who is the blame for this? I pointed a man out in the crowd and my son asked me if I wanted him to go ask the guy. I said yes and he proceeded to approach this individual. The guy watched my son come back to me and followed him back to where I was sitting. He said why did I send my son to talk to him and why didn’t I ask him myself. I said he wanted to ask you. Then I said now that you are here could you tell me what’s going on. He said that this is for Raymond and not about Smith. That’s what he said. I was shocked that he thought this was a reason. Anyway he did.

So we fast-forward to Raymond going to the pros and becoming a success. I was told that Felton had offered some type of gift to the school or program and that Latta refused it. I also went to the school to watch Marion play the Vikings and looked for the retired Felton Jersey. It was there but is so far up in the rafters it took an effort to find it. At halftime I went out into the concession area and looked at the trophy case. First of all I asked myself where are the pictures of the championship squads. Every team who wins has a big picture in a very prominent spot to glorify the team. Latta’s picture was two 8x11 tucked into the trophy case. One of those pictures obscured the inscription on one of the state championship trophies. It was like the whole era was being downplayed.

Now here we are five years into Felton’s pro career and things appear as frosty as they ever were. He simply has not been embraced as the icon that he is. His legacy has not been cherished in any official capacity. You would think that any school who has a star in the NBA would want his presence all over the town and the school but no. If you did not know, you wouldn’t know that Felton ever played at Latta and did all that he had for the recognition that the town and school got because of him.

My question to all of you is why? Why is this and who are the persons or people that are robbing the folks of Latta the fruits of Felton’s labor?

All I know is that if there are individuals perpetrating this thing someone needs to stop him or her. They have way to much power to decide for you that you are better off with things the way they are between Latta and Felton. There is a point of no return. If this thing continues it may never be fixed. Those who are to blame would be dead and gone and their legacy will be that of robbing you and Raymond of yours.

Who knows? All I know is that Felton’s camp is in Mullins.