SMALL TEAM, BIG SUCCESS
HOW JOEL WELLS KEPT SPINNING OUT BASKETBALL WINNERS WITH HARVEST CITY CHRISTIAN ACADEMY
As a Grade 10 student almost 25 years ago, Joel Wells organized the first basketball team to play for Regina Harvest City Christian Academy.
They had no school gym, so before each practice he stood at the door of a rental gym and collected $2 from each player. They pooled their money to buy a single leather ball. Since they had no coach, Wells recruited one.
That first year they had no league to play in, so they practised all season. They attended just one year-end tournament, at a convention in Saskatoon.
Move forward a couple of decades. Wells is all grown up, and so is the basketball team he was instrumental in creating. The Grade 10 kid with a passion for hoops went on to coach, tying the all-time Saskatchewan high school basketball record for most consecutive provincial championships in the process.
He led the Harvest City Reapers, born in the humblest of settings, to eight consecutive Hoopla titles from 2007 to 2014.
Winning just one provincial championship is a formidable task for any school, but winning eight in a row? “Near impossible,” said Brad Wall, a rival coach from Osler Valley Christian Academy.
How hard is it? Key players graduate every year, and the roster is in a perpetual state of turnover. Multiple playoff rounds prior to Hoopla can be unpredictable. And all the time, top schools wear a growing target on their back as other schools try to knock them off their pedestal.
“You might see a run of two or three years, perhaps,” said Wall, whose team ended the Reapers’ lengthy championship run by defeating them 76-57 in the regional playoff finals in March. “But to do it for eight years, it speaks volumes to the commitment of their athletes and the commitment of their coaching there. That’s really remarkable.”
Harvest City shares its record winning streak with one other school, the Swift Current Ardens girls team, who collected gold from 1984 to 1991. The Ardens were led by three different coaches during their record stretch.
While the winning streak is an exciting accomplishment for Harvest City, Wells doesn’t dwell on it. He places more importance in seeing other areas of growth in the boys he has coached.
“When I look back on it, sure you take a lot of pride in the wins,” said Wells, who taught at Harvest City Academy for 11 years before becoming a pastor at Harvest City Church six years ago. “But my famous quote to the boys has always been, ‘I don’t care if you win a Hoopla championship but you lose in life. I would far rather you win in life and lose a provincial title.’
“I still have guys that are 25 years old that will call me up and plop into the chair in my office for advice, or for some wisdom. I’m still trying to help them make good decisions in life. Those things always matter more to me than the wins and losses.”
Wells coached the boys at Harvest City for 17 years, before stepping down as head coach following last season. Wells-coached teams qualified for Hoopla all 17 years he coached. He has won 10 titles, the first in 2000.
Wells says two players stand out during the streak. In the early years, Habib Habib starred for the team. Later on, Atlee Simon dominated. Simon was allowed to play for five years, and was a starter on the team when he was only in Grade 8.
“I had seven years where I had Habib, and I had Atlee,” said the 40-year-old Wells. “To have those two guys, and I had other great players too around them, but those were the two cornerstone players.”
Making the Harvest City streak extra special is that they accomplished it across multiple divisions. They voluntarily moved up to higher levels of competition twice during the streak.
The Reapers won their first six championships in the 1A division, intended for schools with a high school enrolment of less than 30 male students. In 2013, to challenge themselves, they moved up to 2A competition for schools with 31 to 50 males, even though their enrolment remained at the 1A level. They won again.
Knowing he had a strong team again last year, Wells opted to move the school up one more level, into 3A competition, designed for schools with 51 to 120 male students. His team featured three strong seniors, including Simon.
“Atlee was one of the best basketball players in the province,” said Wells. “He was on the provincial team the last number of years. You could argue he was in the top three to five players in the whole province — pretty phenomenal athlete.”
I still have guys that are 25 years old that will call me up and plop into the chair in my office for advice, or for some wisdom. I’m still trying to help them make good decisions in life.
But my famous quote to the boys has always been, ‘I don’t care if you win a Hoopla championship but you lose in life. I would far rather you win in life and lose a provincial title.’
Julian Apakoh and Daniel Felix were also high level senior athletes last year. Wells noted that Simon was known to score between 30 to 50 points per game while it was not unusual for Apakoh to notch 25 to 35 and Felix between 20 and 30.
“Last year, I just knew we had such a special team and we needed to move into a level where we were really going to be pushed to win,” Wells said about moving up to 3A. “To climb the mountain is half the fun. We needed to be challenged, and so that was the decision we made.”
They extended their streak to eight with last season’s 3A win, a victory that Wells calls one of the most significant of his career. He knew it would be his last as coach.
Wells stepped down from the senior team to allow more time with his wife Angela and daughters aged 11, nine and six.
He didn’t step away from coaching all together. He now coaches his oldest daughter on a team he formed last year when she was in Grade 5.
When Wells first let it be known that he was starting a new club team, his phone rang non-stop with parents wanting their kids to join.
“I actually could have started two or three club teams with the amount of people that were phoning,” Wells said. “People want their kids to get more coaching, and I guess I had a good reputation so that didn’t hurt. I absolutely loved it.”
Two coaches took over the senior boys’ team this year. Jeremy Isted, an assistant under Wells who also played on the school’s first Hoopla winning team in 2000, teamed with Jason Muller, who taught the junior boys team last season.
The new coaches got the most they could out of the boys, but saw the streak end when they ran into a powerful Osler Lions team in the regional championship final. Despite finishing one step away from Hoopla this year, they still ranked as one of the eight best 3A teams in the province. If the team had played in the 2A category, where they actually belonged, their streak might be nine.
Marg Brown, who coached the Swift Current Ardens through four of their eight straight championship seasons, was pleased to hear another team tied the Ardens’ all-time record.
“Records are made to be broken,” Brown said from her acreage near Okotoks, Alta.
Brown recalled winning 60 consecutive league, exhibition and provincial games at one point during their Hoopla championship run, and that the streak was broadly covered in the media in those days.
“To win year after year after year, it’s hard to get to the top, but it’s harder to stay there.”
Playing for him is definitely a privilege . . . He taught about life and how to become a man, and how to be on and off the court.
Brown, like Wells, went on to coach her daughters, starting when they were in Grade 5.
“Every year becomes more difficult and more difficult. It’s a feat. It’s not easily done, and it’s probably even tougher now than it was when I coached because kids are starting to play younger, so the calibre of basketball is probably even further advanced.
“Following my students after their playing days were over and seeing them take the lessons that they’d learned when they were competing, into the next stage in life, was even more rewarding than the wins.”
Wells took over pastoring at Harvest City Church, with a congregation of about 1,000, for his father Dave Wells, who led the church for 23 years. Dave remains on staff with his wife Linda.
Thomas Edquilane, who played four years under Wells and wrapped up his own five-year playing career this season, is quick to praise his former coach.
“Joel Wells is an icon for pretty much everybody that’s played here so far,” said the 18-yearold. “Playing for him is definitely a privilege because he didn’t just teach basketball. He taught about life and how to become a man, and how to be on and off the court.”