Lavergne Wolverines ready for first Rumble

Anthony Rutland is beginning his fourth season as head coach at Lavergne High School.

With that, he is also bringing his Lavergne, Tenn., Wolverine team to the Rumble on the Ridge as a first-time participant in the annual Thanksgiving weekend boys basketball tournament.

Rutland came to know of the tournament with help from his brother-in-law, Stephon Welsh who played college ball in Arkansas.

"I was interested in the Rumble because I wanted to get my players more exposure," Rutland added. "He introduced us to former Forrest City mayor Cedric Williams who also helps put the Rumble together each year and I guess you can say the rest is history. We know the tournament itself has a lot of history attached to it and we are very fortunate to be able to become a part of that history as the tournament continues each year.

Before Rutland came to Lavergne to coach, the team made a trip to Florida, but other than that, the team has been semi-local, according to Rutland.

"We have been to a couple tournaments in North Carolina, and I like the exposure we can get by playing out of our state," Rutland added. "I think we are a team ready to play in a tournament known as well as the Rumble. We lost a couple of guys from last year, but we won our district, and played against Brandon Miller more than once or twice and our guys are used to playing at a high caliber of basketball. We have a young guy, Landon Bryant coming up, a junior who was our district MVP last year and we have a senior Donte White who stands about 6'5" who plays with his back to the basket. We are trying to get him to face up and I think we will be a solid team. Our goal, obviously is to get to the state tournament. We fell short of that goal last year by one game."