The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Beyond the court
City has special relationship with its Titans
There’s something about a Lorain basketball game that’s different. It’s hard to pinpoint no matter how many people you ask. There’s a sense of pride that goes almost unmatched across the rest of the high school basketball landscape. On any given year, on any given Tuesday or Friday, even Saturday nights from December to March, you can check the basketball schedule and safely assume no matter where the Titans are playing, the entire community will turn up in support. There’s a love for the sport itself, and certainly a love for the local high school and its athletes, but something about packing the gym on game night transcends cheering the Titans to victory. Because all those years there were two or three high schools within Lorain city limits, the passion rarely waned, and after the schools consolidated in 2010, the energy distributed across several fan bases has converged into one, meeting at the gym at 2600 Ashland Ave. in a celebration of Titan pride and seeing the success of children raised by the city.
Growing up in the Steel City
For a city plagued by poverty and grappling with crime, basketball has become a constant for so many in Lorain as a means to unwind, to catch a break, or simply to escape the pressures of life, even if only for an afternoon.
According to the most recent data, nearly 27 percent of residents live in poverty, while Lorain Police report the number of Part I crimes committed in the city in 2015 was 2,629. Part I crimes are categorized as homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft and arson by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report. “We never get a break. There is no break. But I think we accept that as a challenge,” said Sly Worthy, a 2017 Lorain graduate and lifelong resident. But few places grant reprieve in Lorain like a basketball court, which is why so many kids find themselves dribbling a ball by kindergarten, and by high school, the hope that the sport they’ve grown up playing may one day offer success is enough to breed a fierce passion for the game. “Just from when I was growing up basketball was always a big thing in Lorain,” Worthy said. “We’re affected by poverty so much it’s like if I perfect this there’s a chance I might go to the next level, I might go to college and change something. My grandparents have been broke, their parents have been broke … so if I can get out of this that changes the whole generation after me, and potentially the generation before me. People say it’s more than a game but it’s literally more than a game.” When it becomes more than a game, the stakes are that much higher. Winning means so much more. “Those kids are doing something to show some brightness in the city,” said former Lorain standout and current Youngstown State sophomore Naz Bohannon. “As far as the county goes, everybody always looks at us like, ‘Oh it’s Lorain. They’re ran down, they got this,’ you always hear the bad. But the team itself shows we play for the people in our city. We’re a bunch of hard workers. We’re gonna get it done no matter what the circumstances are and that’s what the team does.” The undefeated team Lorain High School basketball games have become a show unlike any other, with college coaches often asking event staff how they can replicate the production at their own games. The truth is it’s difficult to duplicate. No amount of loud music or halftime performances can produce the passion that seems to come from deep within the community, and many pinpoint the 2014-15 season as the year Lorain basketball evolved into the spectacle we know today. The success of high school basketball runs deep within the city of Lorain, from the Admiral King and Southview teams of the 1980s and ‘90s and even as far back as 1922-23 when Lorain High won the OHSAA’s first-ever Class A championship. Most also agree the undefeated regular season of 2014-15 was another historical high point. “It was like nothing I’ve ever seen. It was like something out of a movie,” said Steven Cawthon, the Titans’ PA announcer. “That team was like the Showtime Lakers. When they came in, you knew you had the Division I football player in Rashod Berry, you had the Andrews brothers, I mean you had Eddie Williamson. You had this mix of players that worked together and the way they played the game, they were kind of intimidating.” On game days, fans would line the outside of the school in the early morning hours hoping to purchase tickets. “I’ve never seen a team capture a community the way they did,” said Steven Newton, Lorain resident and founder of 3rdCoastHoops. “(Lorain) would sell out of tickets for districts, (and people) would go to another district because the tickets were the same color. They would go buy tickets there and that’s how they would come into the games. And so the games would be sold out, would be at capacity and that’s only because people just wanted to see Lorain play so bad that year. It was just pandemonium.” The Titans finished the regular season a perfect 22-0 and captured a district championship over St. Ignatius before falling to St. Edward in a regional final, but more than wins and losses, more than any championship, the 2014-15 team was heralded for the immense pride they brought the city. “That year, my sophomore year, Rashod and Eddie would say before every game ‘Lorain pride’ and just about people being prideful about something good that’s going on,” Bohannon said of that season. “It goes to the saying of ‘It takes a village to raise a child.’ Most of the kids, like people don’t have a kid on the team but they know of them, they’re mutual friends, they’ve seen them grow up in the city so they feel like, ‘OK that can easily be my son.’ They want to go support them in everything.” The city’s watching It’s rare enough to pack home games to capacity night in and night out, but Lorain fans are known to fill the visitors’ side for most every game on the road. That’s not an easy feat considering the Titans play in the Lake Erie League and find themselves traveling at least 35 miles to Cleveland’s east side for half their games. “The fans come on the road with us, they come (to home games), pack gyms every game,” said junior Deonte Benejan, who joined the team this season after transferring from Archbishop Molloy in Queens, New York. “They stand by us. We hit a shot, the crowd goes crazy, we get a stop on defense, the crowd goes crazy. So it’s a great atmosphere and honestly I haven’t played anywhere else where it’s been like this.” The Titans don’t take the community support for granted, either, despite how much they’ve gotten used to lively, near-capacity crowds every night because they see how unique their fan base is while traveling from gym to gym across Northeast Ohio. “Not every school has this many fans, diehard fans that come support almost every night, home and away games. It means a lot and we appreciate them,” senior Devon Grant said. Junior Aaron Whitehead added: “It just shows they really care for us and love us because they come to away games too and bring the same energy, so it’s like every game is like home for us with all our fans.” At this point, opposing teams have to find a way to beat the crowd as much as the team itself. The Titans have had four 20-win seasons since 2013-14 when head coach John Rositano took over the program. “The thing I remember the most is just feeling like everywhere we went was a home game because the whole city came out,” Bohannon said. Feels like family Nowadays, Lorain basketball games are an allout family affair. Not because even half the spectators are somehow related to a player on the team, but because growing up in Lorain creates lifelong bonds with those you spent hours escaping to the basketball court with, or watched lead the program to its first-ever state semifinal since the schools consolidated as pride swelled throughout the city. For someone like Janice Jackson, whose son Jordan is a fixture in the Titans’ lineup, watching hundreds of strangers rally around her son and his friends is something that continues to warm her heart. “It’s like he’s everybody’s kid out there. It’s just love,” she said. “I’m happy because it’s just not about my son, it’s about the whole team, but when they cheer for him like they cheer for everybody else it’s just like, ‘Wow.’ It’s like the whole community comes together for these basketball games.” It’s surreal, too, for players to look up in the stands and see young kids not wearing the jersey of their favorite NBA player, but a Tshirt with their favorite Titan’s number on the back. “You kind of feel like a local celebrity for the time that you’re playing in Lorain,” Bohannon said. “When I played, I liked to talk to the crowd, interact with the crowd, because of them, we play for them. … It’s just amazing to see what complete strangers will do for you just because of what you can do on a basketball court and the impact you can have because of that.” Which is why no matter where life has taken many of the former players, alumni, and city residents, somehow the path always leads back to Lorain, where for a few nights a week during a few months of the year, the community has a common goal. “You don’t know where you’re going until you know where you came from,” Bohannon said. “Home isn’t just the city. Home is all the people coming to those games. All the people that show love and support for you through everything.”
“Home isn’t just the city. Home is all the people coming to those games. All the people that show love and support for you through everything.”
Naz Bohannon, Lorain Titan alumni