Duffer has seen it all as his Milby era ends
This wasn’t how Jim Duffer imagined his final year on the sidelines.
Not a winless season in which his Milby basketball team lost games by scores of 93-29, 90-10, 8527, 78-15 and 70-17.
Not in a temporary home. All but Milby’s original building (built in 1926) was demolished two years ago to make way for a new campus. Since then, the school’s staff and dwindling student body have shared space at Attucks Middle School and the former Jones High School.
The new Milby is scheduled for completion in the fall of 2017. But as Duffer, who has spent most of his life attached to the campus in east Houston, puts it, calling the last few years a roller-coaster ride would be an understatement.
“That’s just too long for me,” said Duffer, a 1980 Milby graduate who spent 13 years as a Buffs assistant under Boyce Honea before becoming the legendary coach’s handpicked successor in 2003. “It’s time for somebody young to get in there to really beat the sidewalks and get the program and the school back to where it was.”
Duffer wanted to be in the new building and help put the numerous banners back up in the gym. He wanted to link Milby’s storied basketball past to its present in more ways than just explaining to people the ring he has isn’t a class ring but from one of the program’s two state championships. From top to bottom
Duffer, who led Milby to a 39-0 record and the Class 5A championship in his first season as head coach, got that chance Tuesday.
Social media and text messages helped bring a number of former Buffs to Barnett for Milby’s finale. They cheered and encouraged them team — and ultimately watched the 2015-16 Buffs lose to Reagan by 43 points.
When it was over, they were called to the court. Dozens made their way. They congratulated the current Buffs and, one by one, hugged Duffer.
“I thought a few people would come, but I had no idea. You notice (them in the stands) a little bit, but I didn’t get a chance really to see who was up there,” said Duffer, who also had former classmates and football teammates in attendance. “That’s when it really hit, and I fought back the tears.”
To his former players, attendance wasn’t optional.
“I had to be here — no matter what,” said Larry Posey, a member of the state team who later helped UT-Arlington earn its only NCAA Tournament appearance. “He played a large part in our lives coming up through high school. He was a phenomenal guy and a coach who took us to the top.”
It was heartwarming, but it also drove home reality. Most of the former Buffs were bigger — much bigger — than the current players.
The 2015-16 roster didn’t have a 6-5 enforcer like Posey or a 6-5 Jawann McClellan, the state’s Mr. Basketball in 2004. There wasn’t an Alton Ford, a 6-9 former McDonald’s All-American.
Things have changed, beginning with Chavez’s opening in 2000 less than three miles down Galveston Road. It was built to relieve an overcrowded Milby, but the allure of a new school with bigger and newer facilities was also there.
Chavez made the 5A playoffs for the first time in 2007 and was in the regional tournament the next two years. The 200809 Lobos were one point away from a state appearance. Victim of numbers
In another situation, players like Jamal Fenton, Robert Martinez and Eze Akwari would have suited up for Duffer at Milby. But they didn’t.
“Numbers started dropping everywhere, and you have to have numbers to be successful in athletics, along with you have to have great players,” Duffer said.
Despite the circumstances, Duffer remains Milby through and through. He rattles off the lengthy résumé that is Buffs basketball, and he’s proud of the fact that once his successor — current girls coach Sam Hines — takes over, it will mark the sixth straight boys head coach who graduated from Milby.
Once the new school opens, Duffer plans to be around and do whatever he can to have the new gymfloor named after Honea. As he was re- minded on Tuesday, the Buffs community means something.
“I’ll be around,” Duffer said. “One of the things coach Honea created back in the 1970s was a family setting. For everybody that comes through the program at Milby, we’re Buffs for life.
“Milby is a very, very special place. I’m the old guy now. So now it’s time for those young guys who have the energy and the enthusiasm to put Milby back on the map.”